Len Roberts

(1947– )
Climbing the Three Hills in Search of the Best Christmas Tree
Just seven nights from the darkestnight of the year, my son and I climbthe three hills behind the whitehouse, his flashlight leapingfrom hemlock to fir, to whitepine and blue spruce and backagain. Up, up higher he runs,shadow among larger shadows in the below-zero, constellatedhalf-mooned sky, his voiceso distant at times I think it is the wind, a rustle of tall grass, the squeak of my bootson new snow, his silence makingme shout, Where are you?, his floatingback, Why are you so slow?, a goodquestion I ask myself to the beatof my forty-eight-year-old heart, so many answers rushing up thatI have to stop and command them back,snow devils whirling before me, behind me, on all sides, names that gleam and blackout like ancient specks of moon-light, that old track I steponto like an escalator risingto the ridge where the besttrees grow and I knowI will find my son.
© Len Roberts