“Between the woods and frozen lake…” Robert Frost, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, line 7.

 

Between the woods and frozen lake
A figment in the snow
A foreign sign found at daybreak
What is it? I don’t know
I ponder should I take a look
Or simply leave it be
A mystery near the little brook
So near and dear to me

Alas, I muster courage
A strength from far beyond
To saunter down the path ahead
Beside the frozen pond
And gaze before this mystery
For any form of sign
Of origins or history
For this figment of mine

As I inched slowly nearer
I saw a speck of brown
An outline drawing clearer
Amid the snowy down
Alas, it was a bottle
With writing worn and faded
An older scrawl-like mottle
Obviously quite degraded

I wonder how it got here
And then I wonder more
It surely held a story
I would like to implore
And so, I grabbed the figment
Packed tightly in the snow
With its brownish amber pigment
To see what it may know

No notes nor scraps of paper
I find no signs at all
Except one odd bright blue marking
With a number to call
I quickly jot the number
And give the place a ring
Where a mid-aged man would answer
Explaining the whole thing

“Ten years, I lost my Mother
To that bottle in the snow
I wrote my number on it
So maybe one would know
Not only had she struggled
But alas, she also lived
And was loved by oh so many
With a lot more love to give.”

I hung up and leaned forward
This gift had been for me
I poured my bottle down the sink
And walked beyond the tree
Returning where the bottle’d been
And placed it where it was
So it was there, left to be seen
By one needing some cause

The figment changed my life that day
My world is better since
And when I see the snow, I pray
Then, through my tears, I wince
For there are many struggling still
I hope someday they’ll find
The courage or the sudden will
In that figment of mine