Driving Minnie's Piano by Lesley Choyce Read Free Book Online Page B

the hood tight, tie it so it dents
my chin and I gladly go out into the cold, booted, mitted, as warm
as one can be on a day when wind drives reckless across the frozen
lake and whips shingles from the roof of my house. The pigeons are
glad to see me and the pheasants hover not far off in the thicket
of leafless wild rose, an old, dead, bent and gnarled apple tree
half sheltering them from the blast. Cracked corn for everyone, the
caged and the free. When the sun strikes away the clouds, I'll open
the door and let my birds ascend into the heavens, but now an
eagle, big as any bird I've seen, is cruising low, riding the wind
south from far up the lake. When he finds the coast he'll quit his
downwind tour and make a slow, heavy tack north to find his mate.
There will be mice to be had, despite the snow that hides them, but
he will not have my pigeons today.
    I walk up the hill among the
well-spaced spruce trees and put bare fingers into the snow to find
two frozen cranberries, toss them in my mouth and roll them around
like marbles, then walk on further until I come to the forest that
steals the sting from the wind. The grey wispy fungus known as old
man's beard hangs from the trees, and star moss covers most of the
stones. Snow stays mostly above, clinging to the boughs of green
needles. If the wind shifts even two degrees to the east, the snow
will become heavier and bend as it builds up on these branches,
breaking some, sparing others. Right now, it still sifts through
where the big trees have not stolen the sky.
    It's quiet here and deep. And
I will not dwell on stasis or permanence but go home and satisfy
myself that it is two days before Christmas and there is nothing,
nothing I am obliged to do with this day but live it for what it
is.

    The wind relents by eleven
a.m. and my family spills out into the bright world. The dog rolls
herself until she is a puffy white cloud with four legs,
unrecognizable except for the teeth showing in her mouth and the
yelp of adventure. My two daughters and I go out onto the frozen
lake, and after the usual warfare of putting on skates in the cold
outdoors, we skate on a smooth, hard surface hidden beneath the
layer of snow that muffles the sound of our blades. The ice
stretches north for nearly a mile to where the geese, at least a
hundred of them, have gathered in the open water. We skate without
speaking over soft white clouds until the wind begins to drop and
Sunyata tells me she remembers this very moment from a dream she
had last night.
    And the geese decide just then
it is time to leave because there will be hunters this afternoon.
They rise up into the blue sky and flow our way, headed towards the
sea and on to their next nighttime resting place. We stop skating
altogether and look up, deafened by their voices, then stunned by
this other thing we feel from their beating wings. It is something
that tugs at you inside. Something elemental that pulls you half
off the ice and up into the sky with them. When they pass and we
three look at each other, Pamela asks me if I felt something trying
to lift me. I nod yes but do not speak.
    When the birds are gone, some
new force of gravity makes us all lie down on the unmarked snow and
leave an imprint of ourselves - arms outstretched, staring up at
the sky. My daughters both immortalize themselves as angels but I
do not. I settle for leaving a scarecrow behind, the mark of a man
with long legs together and arms straight out at his sides,
faceless beneath an empty blue sky.
    Eventually, we follow the long
thread of our skated trail straight back home. Why not go another
route, arc out across the ice? But there is something about seeing
your own home there on the far hill, capped in snow, car buried in
the driveway, the sound of your dog barking at the back door. Why
is it that this makes you skate straight and fast when the cold has
found your fingers and thumbs?
    Small catastrophes of removing
skates and putting on rubber boots with frozen toes