On Christmas Eve, we duck into the dark, dressedlike scarecrows. Faint bells of water chime acrossthis frozen farm. It is time to kick up hay, a nightlyroutine like bedtime stories. The sky ices around us,blue and black and purple, so thin and clear it seemswe could slip on it. My mother, father, the dogs, me,we are one silhouette, pushing through white drifts, puffingsilent mist. In the pond, chunked with snow, a cattail boneyardspikes through ice and moon water. The dogs chase phantomsinto the field; we cross the concrete slab slowlywhere the black mouth of the barn yawns above usand in the breath before my mother finds the light switch,I think it has all disappeared—heifers, hay, and horsesconsumed by the night.
Then, clanking headstalls and clattering horses erupt in the light.Cows…
