Tai Chi And Galoshes

I'm up to my ears in winter and the neighbor's shingles are touched with frost. Practicing cloud hands on our roof, I could use a pair of mittens till the chi kicks in. I've lived in trees, under redwoods where sunlight did not go and the yellow glow from a kitchen's bulb illuminated our summer cabin all day. Moss in the trees, on the steps, on the shingled roof of a storybook house for a storybook life where our son was born, where neighbors brought us a stroller with a kitten tucked inside , where deer fed on grass and lived by the creek in a place we did not own but were never more free. And this morning doing tai chi on the roof in the light, the only trees being distant palms bending in the wind like sails on land, my  galoshes in a pool of condensation deep enough for goldfish, for a Pisces to float, reflecting the foliage of clouds colored by sunrise, fluttered by gulls, my hands going through their motion . . . be your own hero, they whisper, lean into the wind, you are forever free when you live how you want to be . . . bow to the trees.