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Somerville resident Kirk Etherton writes: “I wrote this poem when one of my favorite neighbors was three years old. Last year, she helped to make the igloo. School Street is a fun place to live – in any season.”

Kirk Etherton

Time

for Madelyn Holley and her family

“Time to make a igloo!” you declared, I’m

told, pointing at the season’s first snowflakes

parachuting down from the as-yet-unknown

endlessly emptying and filling sky. This

surprised me, as it had been almost half

a lifetime ago since you’d seen any white

around—you were only two when you and

your Dad sat in the calm cold of the “Igloo

of 2014,” and I the igloo-maker

was certain, hearing of your exclamation,

to make a point of putting up a cool

structure large enough at least for you, age

three. It was the least (and most) I could do

this winter; that, and the sledding hill

I piled up behind it which we all—

adults and kids alike—loved flying down.

Lucy brought out a tray of cups of hot

chocolate one afternoon, and you looked

“like a pirate, Madelyn!” observed your

Dad, with your dark, swashbuckling goatee

ring of dark cocoa between pink cheeks.

Together, working, playing on this earth

with all of you one paradise I know. Thanks

for sharing Eden, transitory, made of snow.

— Kirk Etherton
March 20, 2015

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Doug Holder, 25 School St.; Somerville, MA 02143
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