Testing the Ice

who da fuck

knows why you did it

it was lawrence

and you were six

it was something you had to do

probably for no reason

or for one only god knew

or maybe just because

your parents said not to

perhaps because it was

a sunny sunday morning in winter

before heading off to mass

and the new shoes

smothering your feet

seemed too shiny and polished

for your rebellious streak

more likely it was just

the snow piled on the hidden walks

except where your father had shoveled

a short exit to the street

and the roads outside the house

were rutted and poorly maintained

coming apart from use and abuse

like the city of concentric circles

surrounding what was then

the center of your universe

and the storm drains were clogged

and pools of slushy oily water

were splashed and slopped about all day

by indifferent passing trucks and cars

and froze overnight and lay in the morning

as frozen lakes beside the mountains

of snowy rubble and crust

left by the sanitation plows

creating a strange

and haunting landscape

that seemed back then

always to call your name

and what could be

the penance

you probably thought

(if you thought at all)

god might record

in heaven's ledger

(if there was even such a book)

for a kid who by all accounts

was still under seven

for a cold wet foot or

a ruined shoe or two

so out you went

despite parental orders

to the contrary

to test the ice

to figure at first

with tentative equivocal steps

or sometimes with ill-advised

impetuous stomps

what it would take to make

the solid world crack

and thinking back upon it now

as you sometimes let yourself do

you know at heart

you really had no choice

but to pick the gauntlet thrown

by each winter storm

to accelerate the pace

of doing what the tiny demons

and desperate angels

perched on your young shoulders

told you was in your nature

to check if the opaque plate of glass

rolled out like a welcome mat

upon the ground

would support your weight

and laughing with

the feeling of exhilaration

each time you succeeded

in sliding clear across

and there my old friend

you learned still near to home

under loving watchful eyes

a lesson that melded to your soul

and served you long in life

how the pain

that besets a person

who is too timid to try

is worse than any setback

befalling an intrepid

albeit weary explorer

who breaks through