Month of Poetry, 2014, Day 6: Spring Runoff

Spring Runoff
(a prose poem)

The sun returned today and so did the phoebe, dip-dipping his tail in the apple tree. I dragged everyone to the river, rushing with snowmelt and yesterday's rain. Milo and Zephyr wandered out on the ice, Zephyr wading through ankle-deep water-over-ice, skidding across to the opposite bank. Emmet, wearing Papa's boots did not brave the ice. This is the part where you let kids do things that seem dangerous, so later they won't do things that actually are. And still I paced the bank like a terrier. Milo went in first, a triangle of ice breaking off his floe. I didn't see him go in until he was scrambling out of the waist-deep water. Then Zephyr went through a black hole to his knees. "I almost drowned," he said later, after we poured water out of his boots and stripped his wet clothes on the deck. "I was almost swept away in the current."