The Christmas Promise

Built of stones quarried from a century,
the cabin sits low with its back mortared
and braced against the north wind, ice bound

from days gone past in darkness before
the mem'ry of man, the cleaved glacier fields
of long ago to where they roamed,

settling the scarred land here, a man and
his woman have made this place their home
far from his family's village to the south

out of reach from the place of their birth,
eager to be challenged, as part of a
desolate earth of ungodly beauty:

The howl of wolves is music,
The sleet and rain their song.
The midnight sun that guides him

as eight Huskies race the laden sled away
from a town across the inlet where friends
have gathered for some Christmas cheer.

The fur parka hood that's pulled 'round his face
starts to ice up from the cold as he
thinks of her through the sound of dogs

She tends to him, and their frontier home
where there's the promise of their firstborn
who hasn't introduced himself just yet.

She smiles at the image of her man, of how much
like a bear he looks when he strides in from the frigid
snow flurries with that beard and windblown ginger hair.

Eternal nights and northern lights of winter
caress their cabin nest while she sleeps
naked and warm, wrapped in layers of soft fur.

Whispering his name as she slumbers,
a fire glows and flickers from the hearth,
the wind moans outside the frosted windows,  

a full moon stands watch passing overhead,
and floods the frozen land with its light—

her ginger man forgets the cold and driving
wind, to endure and urge his Huskies on,
heading true north towards the promise of her.