For A Bag of Coal

The winds had blown snow over roads and the fence,
The days had passed slowly, the cold was intense.
A family sat huddled to preserve any heat,
The mother sat rubbing her children's small feet,
The father was working a job far away,
No help could he bring to the family that day.
The frost made cathedrals seem real on the panes,
Nothing was moving, not even the trains.
From the edge of the huddle, a boy slipped away,
Outside in the snowbanks he looked for his sleigh.
Scarcely nine the young boy heard a voice to him say,
"Go out and get coal. I will show you the way."

Across the deep banks he pulled his small sleigh,
Through wind driven snow, the boy found his way,
He rapped on the window of the one grocery store,
The owner came rushing and opened the door.
"Hello Mr. Barkley," said a voice in the coat,
"Its coal that I need sir, We're in a bit of a boat."
The kindly old man brought the boy in the store,
Put him close to the stove, his clothes on the floor.
"A fifty pound bag sir; can you make it a loan?
I'm in a hurry you see, I need to get home."
With a rope from the store the coal tied to the sleigh,
A wave and a thank you, and the boy was away.

"Well," said the man, his hair tinged with gray,
"I somehow got back with the coal on that day.
I knew from that moment, I could be my own man,
So long as my Lord kept hold of my hand."
I've come back from away where riches I've found,
In far away forests, and from rocks in the ground.
This was the house; it's here that I see,
The faces I long for to look back at me.
He smiled from his seat in the room he was born,
Looked at the stove that had once kept them warm.
"I've been my own person, strong in heart and in soul,
By remembering the day I went looking for coal."

-- Gordon Bain, October, 2008.