hot chocolate and slowly melting ambition

I wrote this poem a few years back. In fact, I posted it a few years back. I remembered it today and thought that I should post it again, because I really love it.

When the snow falls under my feet
I remember
Hot chocolate and slowly melting ambition

Time had no limit then
My toes touched the sky when I swung up, singing
Then pumped back

And I could lay there
Forever
Content to be surrounded by the silence of the snow

I wrote this thinking back to my childhood. Whenever we would get a good snow we would all bundle up and play outside building snowmen and snow forts and making angels in the snow. And then, when our fingers felt like they were going to fall off from the bitter cold, we would go back inside to slowly peel off all of our layers, and my mom would always - without fail - make us hot chocolate. Homemade hot chocolate with marshmallows.

In summer months we would swing and sing. Singing at the top of our lungs whatever we wanted to. It really was so much fun, and I miss those days with my sisters. I hope that someday my children will be able to swing and sing and enjoy every minute of it.

And then occasionally when nobody else wanted to play in the snow, I would go out back and just find a spot to lay down. I would lay there and just marvel at the fact that all I could hear was the snow shifting and melting around me. All else was still. And I would wish that I could just lay there forever in that peaceful place . . . but the cold would get to me evenutally.

It's time to go sledding - to pull the inner child back out of her box. Today is my last final and then I'm free as a bird for about a month. I think I'll pray for more snow . . . or maybe I'll just head up the canyon and find a hillside that's still fresh. I'll take Lucas along. He'll love it.