Yesterday's road trip into the Upper Kingdom -- the part of the Northeast Kingdom north of Sheffield Heights -- was my third within five weeks.
Which is a lot, for a region I've carefully stayed away from for years now. Call it dipping a toe back into the ice water. I might not want to go all the way in, at this time of year! (I'm not one of those Polar Bear Plunge folks. Give me a good book and a thick sweater instead.)
At the intended goal location of yesterday's trip, I met someone who'd been living less than 2 miles from my home in Irasburg at the time when I gave birth to my second son, in an uninsulated house on the ridge, facing a spectacular view of distant Jay Peak. It took 23 cords of split wood to heat that house for a winter. And it was actually 41 years ago, but that doesn't fit well into the line.
So here's the poem:
Road Trip
December settles into biting cold, and the snow-cased fields
spool past, low metal structures, unpainted houses.
This is where I lived back then, close to the northern border.
Only blink, and a battered green car from forty years back
could pass in the other direction, my young-mother self cooing
to the baby in the snowsuit. With icy chunks of split wood
jammed into the Subaru’s flattened cargo hold, not enough
warmth even as the heater cranks, full on. “Home soon,
sweetheart.” Inside my patched jacket, past my blue sweater,
under the long-sleeved T, breastmilk leaking in anticipation
quick-chilling along my chest. One-third cord of firewood,
five days of heat for the house, maybe six. After lunch,
do it again—lucky to buy six cords with cash. The pale sun
sets early in December. That year’s best Christmas gift was
the slow cooker: It didn’t need to be watched or touched
until, baby nursed, diaper changed, husband hungry,
beef stew was ready. With food stamps, I always got
the cheapest cut of meat.
