"Christmas Day."
"We decided to say it was Christmas day.
Living for so long shut in by the deep snow,
it was impossible for people to keep track of the date.
How were we to know?
But we could estimate we were drawing
near to the end of December, and we wanted
to celebrate the holiday.
On the morning that we chose, daybreak
brought us a sky full of flakes, a snow that clings to clothes
and makes its own way into the smallest holes
and seals light out of the hut.
Eliza, lying in her quilt with her eyes alert
for anything moving on the floor of the hut, quick-handed,
caught four mice in the morning.
We cut off the tails and heads and tugged
hard to pull out the tangled entrails
from inside the trunks, which we cooked up at once.
There was enough for each person to squat on the floor
and eat several small strips of this flesh
while it was still hot.
We were very careful to save some meat.
And when it grew late in the dim afternoon,
we sat down again for a second meal.
Finally, all our food was gone.
And then what I did I might explain if I admit my mind
was sometimes unsound.
The pain from the wound in my hand
had spread like a slow flame all the way up my arm,
and it clouded my brain.
When my head was light, it was a chore for me
to walk out very far or even try to talk clearly anymore.
But when I saw our food was gone,
I stood up and bowed my head.
I said, I feel, in spite of the grief which we share here,
on this, the most hopeful day in the year,
we should say a prayer.
Then I prayed, dear Christ, we have seen
the worst weather on Earth.
Still, we live by hand to mouth.
And today, we want simply to enjoy and celebrate
the day of your birth.
We made our mistakes, suffered for our greed,
and paid for our pride.
There's no more need to torment people for ignorance or guilt.
We have done all that we can to endure in this dark hell.
We paid our price, and now we pray for our release.
Tamsen sat crying quietly to herself.
I felt like a fool.
I ended by saying, we still may hope to escape alive
if God should change his mind and wish to set us free,
if God should care to see us all survive.
Here, my voice dropped.
I stopped speaking and raised my eyes
to the solid ceiling, a dome built of boughs and skin,
sealed fast by ice, the only holes
stopped with bits of clothes.
It no longer felt like a cold cave but had become home to us.
And yet I thought, good gray ghost, winter
won't last forever.
The freeze can't hold too long like this.
So let us see the sun carve through the cold.
Let the drifts shrink down from the door.
May the mild sun melt the snow away and free the fields
so we can drive across the grass again.
Every night that we sit in this hut,
we think of the greened ground.
In our daydreams, we watch a creek
swollen brown with silt rise in the spring
while the bank bubbles and the soft soil steams.
In the winter gloom, our girls had grown as crafty as cats,
thin and gray.
But they were fed today, so we felt content
singing old carols in the cold, although each time the wind
increased, all the walls would creak.
The weight of winter pressed upon our backs
like a field filled with rocks.
Then the sun went down, and we crept out of the hole
to see the stars, a million lights
over the lifeless meadow.
We fell on our knees and crawled back to our beds once more.
The wind had blown the whole sky clear,
letting the light of the moon fall
on our entrance like a stone."