Tart Tangerine #6

What I remember most about her is the way her hair looked in the snow.

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

She’d head outside, like an excited child, and spin around, her long, wavy brown hair fanning out around her head, the flakes catching lightly on her tresses. Her eyes would sparkle as she tilted her head back, tongue out, to catch the falling flakes. And when she’d look at me, her delicate lashes would be thick with the falling snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

Then, laughing, she’d run to me and throw her arms around my neck and kiss my cheek, then drag me out of the doorway to join her. I never resisted too hard, trying to keep the smile from my face. This was our game and we’d repeat it whenever the fresh white flakes would come tumbling out of the sky like icy acrobats, whirling in a ballet of motion on the chill winter wind. Then we’d head inside for hot cocoa or mulled wine and I’d watch the snowy dandruff fade from her hair in the firelight, slowly melting away.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

Just as I watched the life melt away from her eyes as I held her in my arms that night, next to the twisted metal heap that was my pickup truck, when the black ice, snow’s treacherous companion, took the wheels out from under us like a new-born calf learning to walk.

That night, it was the burning fuel that melted the snow in her hair, and the sound of my crying, rather than her laughter that filled my ears. But she still tilted her head back to catch one last downy flake on her tongue.

Then, looking at me through lashes thick with heavy snow, she made me promise to spin in the snow and remember her.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.