SHOVELING SNOW
For a little while
I sit in the hogan
thinking of my father
riding along the snowy trail
to the Trading Post.
Snow stops falling.
Cold blows its blue breath
across the white.
I help my mother shovel snow.
We make a path to the sheep corral
and to my grandmother's hogan.
The snow, so soft to feel,
is hard to shovel.
The cold slaps at my face.
It traps my hands and my feet
in icy feeling.
My mother takes me
into the hogan.
She rubs my face and hands
and my feet with snow.
Soon
little hot pains
come to play
with my cold fingers
and my cold toes.
Soon the icy feeling goes away.
