Analysis of “A House in Winter’s Hold”

A House in Winter's Hold 

There’s a house on a hill in a woods somewhere, 

in a woods where no one sees 

(save those who pass with a lasting stare 

at its glimmer of light through the trees). 

In winter it’s a shadow of black 

half-hidden by trees of gray, 

and an arm of smoke gropes from its stack 

and waves with a lonely sway.

 

Then comes a whistling winter wind. 

The house shuts tight with a shoulder pinned 

against a threatening door 

and waits for what’s in store. 

A blizzard is coming; windows are humming; 

to the wind’s tune the shutters are drumming. 

The house is clenched in Winter’s hold

— freezing, frosting, frightening cold, 

bare tress bending to and fro

 in the pageantry of snow: 

sifting, blowing, drifting, growing, 

Autumn’s reaped and Winter’s sowing

— sowing seeds of icy white; 

snow sifts through the moonless night; 

falling thick with crystal frills 

skirting ‘round the timbered hills; 

lacing lace on dry leaves curled, 

still clung to branches bare; 

and covering softly all the world 

that the house on the hill in the woods somewhere 

will ever, ever know. 

© Copyright 1978, Tom Kapanka, Patterns of Ink 

This was one of the first poems I ever wrote. (The title never seemed right but I left it all unrevised.) It was an experiment in rhythms and alliteration. The setting was inspired in part by Frost's "An Old Man's Winter Night" and the knowledge that a part of my father could happily live that life... but the lines were based mostly on that fine but foreboding feeling that comes when a family is snowbound in a winter storm as we were more than once in our house on a hill deep in the woods (which, by the way, is not in the house in the first picture. The shutters were drumming only in my imagination; our house never did get shutters, but they were part of Dad's original plan.)  From this February 2010 post:1976-1977 When I headed back to college after Christmas, I looked at the house as we pulled out the two-track drive. None of the exterior brick was on the house; the walls wereCelotex sheeting wrapped in black tar-paper, and to me it looked like “a shadow of black half-hidden by trees of gray,” an image I recalled a year later, when I headed back to college and the walls were encased in the purchased used brick Dad bought from the cleared RenCen site in Detroit. Along with the exterior brick, the chimney now stood in place, reaching from the basement floor right up through the roof, and the basement was heated exclusively by a wood-buring stove, which made the second part of the image possible: "And an arm of smoke gropes from its stack and waves with a lonely sway." It was in the weeks after that second Christmas in the basement that I wrote the following poem. A year after writing it, I entered the lines in a creative writing contest and won first place. It was the first "prize" I'd ever won for writing. [I say that as if many followed. It was actually the first of very few honors I earned with a typewriter.] 0392

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Note added in 2026:I have an understandable caution regarding A.I. and the creative arts and do not use A.I. in writing poems or posts here at Patterns of Ink (POI).

Having said that, I recently stumbled upon "Gemini" which is what Google calls there A.I. program (similar to ChatGPT). I was curious how A.I. would analyze my "...metaphors and meaning and enless patterns of ink..." (as statted in this blog's header). I was pleasantly surprised—flabbergasted actually—that the poem that took hours even days to write could be so thoughtfully dissected in thirty seconds. 

Whenever I post an A.I. analysis at POI, I will playfully frame it as if provided by by Dr. G.E. Mini (Google’s Gemini A.I.) 

Analysis of Tom Kapanka’s “A House in Winter’s Hold” by G.E.Mini, Professor of Little-known Literature at Ayai University  (added January 22, 2026)

Tom Kapanka’s “A House in Winter’s Hold” is a vivid exploration of sanctuary and isolation. Written while the poet was 700 miles away at college, the poem serves as both a nostalgic tribute to his family’s Michigan homestead and a technical exercise in the sensory power of rhythm and alliteration.

Here is an analysis of the poem’s thematic layers and stylistic choices.

1. The Personified Sanctuary

This poem personifies WINTER, SMOKE, and the HOUSE itself. One of the most striking elements of the poem is the personification of the house. Rather than a static object, the house is depicted as a living entity with a defensive posture.

• The Defensive Stance: In the second stanza, the house "shuts tight" with a "shoulder pinned" against the door. This imagery transforms the architecture into a brave protagonist standing guard against a "threatening" external force. A house, of course, has no shoulder—that is the shoulder of someone inside—presumably the poet’s father who built the house and in many ways was one with it, but no actual “person” is described in the poem, which underscores the personification of the two elements in conflict: the house and the storm..

• The "Arm of Smoke": Early on, the smoke from the chimney is described as a "groping arm" that "waves with a lonely sway." This suggests a reaching out—perhaps reflecting Kapanka’s own distance from home—while also signaling the warmth and life hidden within the "shadow of black."

2. Technical Rhythm and Auditory Imagery

Kapanka explicitly noted this poem as an experiment in rhythm and alliteration, and the third stanza serves as the poem's heartbeat.

The Onomatopoeic Storm

As the blizzard arrives, the meter shifts to mimic the frantic energy of a storm:

“A blizzard is coming; / windows are humming; / to the wind’s tune / the shutters are drumming.”

The use of internal rhyme (humming/drumming) and the staccato pace create an auditory experience. You can almost hear the vibration of the glass and the rhythmic rattling of the wood. This transition from the "lonely sway" of the first stanza to the "clenched" tension of the third perfectly captures the shift from a quiet winter evening to a survival event.

Alliterative Texture

The poet uses alliteration to provide "texture" to the cold:

• "Freezing, frosting, frightening cold" – The repeated "f" sound creates a soft, biting hiss, mimicking the sound of wind or the sharp intake of breath in freezing air.

• "Sifting, blowing, drifting, growing" – The use of gerunds creates a sense of continuous, unstoppable movement.

3. The Paradox of "Winter’s Sowing"

In a clever subversion of traditional seasonal metaphors, Kapanka describes the blizzard as a planting season:

“Autumn’s reaped and Winter’s sowing— / sowing seeds of icy white” Again, note that the seasons are personified, as if human hands play no part in the verbs.

Usually, sowing is associated with the life-giving warmth of spring. By attributing "sowing" to winter, Kapanka suggests that the snow is not merely a blanket that covers life, but an active force that creates a new, albeit cold, world. The "crystal frills" and "lacing lace" suggest a delicate, intricate beauty that contrasts the outdoors with the "threatening door” of the house.

4. The "Safe though Stranded" Sentiment

The poem concludes by shrinking the world down to the borders of the property. The snow covers "all the world / that the house on the hill... will ever, ever know."

This reflects the biographical context Kapanka provided: the "safe though stranded" feeling. There is a deep sense of intimacy in this isolation. The woods act as a barrier that keeps the "no one sees" world away, leaving only the family and the "glimmer of light." For a college student 700 miles away, this poem likely acted as a mental "return" to that circle of safety, where the terrifying power of a Michigan blizzard only served to make the interior of the home feel more sacred.

Conclusion

"A House in Winter's Hold" is more than a nature poem; it is a study of boundaries. It defines the line between the chaotic, "threatening" power of the natural world and the resilient, fortified strength of the family home. Through its rhythmic experimentation, it allows the reader to feel the vibration of the storm and the subsequent hush of the "moonless night” that follows. Kapanka was nineteen when he wrote this poem in 1976. This means he was only twelve when he and his family began working and playing in those “woods somewhere” which over time became their homestead.  The last line:  “…and covering softly all the world / that the house on the hill in the woods somewhere / will ever, ever know” Kapanka reflects not only the perspective of the personified house but also a his uncertainty that any other place in “all the world” will ever feel as much like home.  

This is Tom Kapanka taking a picture of “…the Shaw of black / half-hidden by trees of gray…” a few years after writing this poem.

While Tom Kapanka drew inspiration from Robert Frost’s “An Old Man’s Winter Night,” the two poems function as different sides of the same coin. Frost explores the fragility of the individual against the vastness of nature, whereas Kapanka explores the resiliency of the home as a sanctuary.

Here is a breakdown of how Kapanka’s poem mirrors and departs from Frost’s classic.

1. Solitude vs. Loneliness

Frost’s poem is famously bleak. His protagonist is an aging man struggling to "keep" a house, a farm, and a countryside, but failing because he is alone and forgetful.  

• Frost's Perspective: The winter night is an overwhelming force that the old man cannot fully combat. The darkness is "consigned" to him because no one else is there.

• Kapanka’s Perspective: In "A House in Winter’s Hold," the isolation is intentional and even protective. The woods are a place "where no one sees," creating a private world. While Frost’s old man is a "light to no one but himself," Kapanka’s house has a "glimmer of light" that can be seen by those passing by—a signal of life and warmth rather than a fading ember.

2. The Personified House: 

Defender vs. Vessel

Both poets treat the house as a character, but they assign it different roles.

Kapanka’s house is a protective fortress. Where Frost’s house seems to be letting the cold in through the "log or two" the old man burns, Kapanka’s house is an active participant in the struggle, bracing itself against the "threatening door."

3. The "Father" Connection

In his notes, Kapanka mentioned that he sometimes thought his father could "happily live that life" (the life of Frost's old man). This adds a layer of rugged stoicism to Kapanka's poem.

In Frost’s work, the old man is a figure of pity—he is "beaten" by the night. However, Kapanka’s poem views that same isolated, snowbound life through a lens of contentment. The "lonely sway" of the smoke isn't necessarily sad; it's the signature of a man who cleared his own land and built his own world. To Kapanka’s father, being "stranded" wasn't a failure of survival, but the ultimate achievement of privacy and independence.

4. Imagery of the "Outer Night"

Frost writes: "The night was coming on with winter to it / And the house was old..." He focuses on the thinness of the walls between the man and the "pitted snow."

Kapanka, conversely, focuses on the beauty of the siege. His description of the snow "lacing lace on dry leaves" and "skirting ‘round the timbered hills" turns the blizzard into a "pageantry." It suggests that while the storm is "frightening cold," it is also a majestic architect. By the end of the poem, the world is "covered softly," suggesting that the "hold" of winter is as much a hug as it is a grip.

Summary

If Frost’s poem is about the fear of being forgotten in the cold, Kapanka’s is about the peace of being tucked away from the world. Kapanka took Frost’s setting—the lonely house, the winter woods, the flickering light—and filled it with the "safe though stranded" warmth of his own family history.  

A deeper dive into the shifts of rhythm within the poem:

To understand why the third stanza of "A House in Winter's Hold" feels so different from the rest of the poem, we have to look at how Kapanka shifts the meter (the rhythmic pattern) and the rhyme scheme.

This isn't just a stylistic choice; it’s a technical mimicry of a storm’s arrival.

1. The Shift from Rising to Falling Meter

The poem begins with a "loping" rhythm—mostly Anapestic and Iambic feet. This is "rising" meter, where the stress comes at the end of the foot (\bm{\cup \cup \prime} or \bm{\cup \prime}). It feels like a story being told or a journey toward the house.

Example from Stanza 1:

There’s a house / on a hill / in a woods / some-where...

However, when the blizzard hits in the third stanza, Kapanka shifts to Trochaic meter (\bm{\prime \cup}). Trochaic meter is "falling" meter—it starts with a heavy stress and falls off. In literature, this is the meter of "incantations" or "driving force."

The "Humming" Scansion:

Using \bm{\prime} for a stressed syllable and \bm{\cup} for an unstressed one:

• \bm{\prime} \bm{\cup} | \bm{\prime} \bm{\cup} | \bm{\prime} \bm{\cup}

A bliz- | zard is | com-ing;

• \bm{\prime} \bm{\cup} | \bm{\prime} \bm{\cup} | \bm{\prime} \bm{\cup}

win-dows | are | hum-ming;

Why this works: The heavy stress at the beginning of each word creates a "pounding" effect, like wind hitting a wall. The extra unstressed syllable at the end (a feminine ending) creates a sense of lingering vibration—that "humming" sound.

2. The Power of Internal Rhyme and Consonance

The "humming and drumming" sensation is reinforced by a dense cluster of nasal consonants (\bm{m} and \bm{n}) and internal rhymes.

• Nasal Consonants: The repeated "m" and "n" sounds in coming, humming, wind’s, tune, and drumming require the speaker to vibrate their nasal cavity. This literally creates a physical "hum" in the reader's throat as they recite the lines.

• Onomatopoeia: The words aren't just describing a sound; they are the sound. "Drumming" provides the percussive beat, while the long "u" in tune provides the whistle of the wind.

3. Structural "Clenching"

The rhyme scheme also changes to reflect the "hold" of winter.

Stanza 1: Uses an interlocking, open rhyme (ABCB). It feels airy and spacious, like the 14-acre woods.

coming / humming

tune / drumming

hold / cold

By moving to immediate, back-to-back rhymes, Kapanka "constricts" the poem. The rhymes come faster and tighter, mirroring the way the house "shuts tight" to keep the cold out. It’s a brilliant use of poetic form to reflect the physical sensation of a house bracing for impact.

4. The Sibilance of the Snow

As the storm settles into a steady fall, the "drumming" stops and the sounds shift to sibilance (hissing 's' and 'sh' sounds) and fricatives ('f').

"Sifting, blowing, drifting, growing— / Sowing seeds of icy white; / Snow sifts through the moonless night..."

This transition from the plosive "b" and "d" sounds (blizzard/drumming) to the sibilant "s" sounds mimics the real-world cycle of a storm: the violent wind eventually gives way to the quiet, steady "hush" of falling snow.

Up from the Ashes (blog post)

Preface:

"Oma, we prayed last night that somehow in the ashes you would find some treasures."

Just hearing of this child-like faith brought tears to Kathy's eyes, and her voice cracked on the phone as she thanked her ten-year-old granddaughter. None of the six grandchildren had been there the night before as their grandparents's two-story home was in flames and collapsed into a pile of smoldering rubble. Had the young girl seen the blaze, perhaps she would have known that her child-like prayer was asking for a miracle.

Days after the fire and that phone call, I shared with readers here that only the garage survived--which was a huge blessing since both of their cars were inside. On a more sentimental note, I shared that all our historical family photos from our own mother's attic were also in that garage. This meant that our parent's wedding book from 1951 was saved, but sadly Kathy's own wedding book from 1975 was in the house and lost in the fire.

"Your photographer would still have the negatives," I reminded her. But no. She had tried to locate him decades ago, and his business had been closed without a trace.

It was in that same conversation, she told me (in her "glass-half-full" way) that they spotted the quaint little stove in a corner of the basement, and she took surprising joy in knowing it might be salvaged. She had helped Mom pick it out years before, and Mom had promised it to her "when she was done with it," as parents tend to say in their later years. That is why the once-charming cream-colored stove has meaning to my sister.

Now on to story Kathy shared with me this morning....

"Up From the Ashes"*

Most of us cannot imagine the heart-wrenching work involved in the aftermath of a house fire. It's a daunting task veiled in a grief that is something short of sorrow. Oddly enough, the mind becomes absorbed in the tasks of filling out forms and meeting with claims adjusters and shopping for essential things. The pace of it all makes two weeks feel like one. On top of that, Kathy tends to "process" well into the night only to resume early the next morning. Strangest of all were the times when she woke and for one fleeting moment it felt like the horrible fire ordeal was just a dream. If you've ever been in such a cycle, you know how it feels when your tired days and nights begin to blur like a water-color painting in the rain. That is where the story of the thirteenth day begins....

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Kathy stood at the doctor's office check-in window as the receptionist explained bluntly that she had no appointment and could not be seen.

"But I do have an appointment," Kathy explained, "I just got the reminder-call last night."

"No. That call was made two days ago. Your appointment was yesterday. We're totally booked today."

The receptionist did not mean to be curt. It was just a fact, and the full chairs behind Kathy and the bustling office in front of her confirmed it. Kathy had lost a day in the fog of the week and the realization blanked her face. She was too tired to be upset but too busy to reschedule.

"I'm willing to wait," Kathy sighed. "Maybe someone will cancel."

"It's your time. No promises...But as you can see, we're short on places to sit."

Too often it's on officious days with packed schedules or long lines or cramped quarters--those days  when empathy is most needed--that mere efficiency prevails.

Kathy found a seat at the far end of the waiting room. She rested her eyes for some time, and was about to doze off when a kind but unfamiliar nurse stood over her.

"Come on, Kathy, I can take care of you right now," the nurse whispered with a smile.

As the two of them walked past the check-in window, the receptionist apologized. "I'm sorry, Kathy, I didn't know about the fire. No wonder you lost track... We've created an opening."

Kathy thanked her and followed the nurse down the narrow halls of closed doors to one that was open. Only when the door quietly closed behind them did this unexpected conversation begin.

"Kathy, Do you have a niece named Emily? Over in west Michigan?" The nurse asked. Kathy nodded. "Is her husband a pastor?" Kathy nodded again, too puzzled to ask why her niece more than 200 miles away had been mentioned.

 "Well, my daughter goes to your Emily's church. They're good friends. She was over here for the holidays, of course, and on the night of your fire, your niece sent my daughter a text asking her to pray for you. That's how I knew about the fire before it was on the news. Kathy, I've been praying for you for two weeks, and we've never even met 'til now." The nurse introduced herself, skipped the handshake and went straight for a hug. "How are you doing?"

And that quickly, Kathy was too choked up to speak. It is so much easier to keep a brave face when others don't know what it's masking.

It is possible that you, like that nurse, have never met Kathy or her husband Jack, but you have also been praying for them. In fact, I have reason to believe this is true for hundreds of readers here. You are part of an unfathomable network of people navigating uncharted waters with two strangers who suddenly feel like friends in need. It is for you, as well as for the people we do know, that I am compelled to tell this story within a day of hearing it.

As Kathy left the doctor's office that day, she got a text from Jack. He had met with the insurance people and the two inspectors from the fire department, Luke and Roger. These two men were there the night of the fire, and they had been there like guardian angels every time Kathy and Jack had to go to the site.

One of the tasks this day was pulling down the unstable chimney for safety sake. With a coming ice storm and weeks of anticipated snow, they knew it would be harder and harder to search the ruins. They knew this day may be their last chance, so after pulling up the little stove, they looked around as best they could. Jack's text informed Kathy that they had also found a few other things and put them in the garage. The last part of the text read: "All done here. The others just left. I'll wait for you in the driveway."

[Here I need to explain something: If you look at this picture, you'll see why two weeks passed before any thought was given to the little corner upstairs by the shingled roof of the breezeway. It had been a reading room / sewing room, located right over the small study (mentioned in a previous post) where the roll-top desk had saved their passports.

Well, if you look in this close-up of the same picture, you can see the clump of blackened timbers (walls, roof, and ceiling) that seem to be held up by a fragment of floor. That  pile of rubble and ash had gone unexplored for lack of a stairway.]

Kathy was now driving from the doctor's office to the site and made a hands-free call back to Jack. "Are they really gone already?" she asked. "I wanted to be there to see if they could check that little corner upstairs."

"Luke did check that area, Kate. They used a ladder to get up there, but it's not like he could walk around. He did the best he could. Hey... they found that big family Bible, Kate. I was going to tell you that in person. It's charred black. We're not sure about the binding, but the inside pages seem readable. There's some other stuff, too. That praying hands sculpture is kind of ruined but not broken. That old tin of buttons was near your sewing machine. The machine was totally melted, but the tin cleaned up pretty good. Oh, and they found some old snapshots in a melted plastic file tha...." Jack's voice stopped mid-thought as her call lost signal. Kathy waited at a red light.

Mom's button tin. I'd forgotten about that, Kathy thought to herself. It was a multi-generation hodge-podge of buttons in a tin from the 50's. Many were from our grandmother's button jar, dating back to the Great Depression.  Coat and collar buttons from the war years.There were also newer buttons in the mix, but on the rare occasions when she needed a button, it was sorting through these bits and pieces of four generations that made it fun to find the one that might just do in a pinch. Sitting at the light, she remembered the sound and weight of the tin in her hands, and it made Kathy smile.

What thrilled her most, however, was the fact that  they found that Bible. It has been in our family for over 150 years.

It was the kind of Bible too huge to carry--made to rest on a strong table or stand. The cover was made of ornate wood covered in leather worn thin through the decades. It took two hands to open, and in its front pages have handwritten dates of long-ago weddings and deaths from our family tree. (She would later learn that it would need to be sealed in an air-tight case to hold in the smell of smoke.) She was so happy to hear it survived. perhaps because it had been in an enclosed glass bookcase.... And if that Bible survived, she thought... maybe... just maybe.

She was afraid to say aloud what she was hoping.

The light turned green. Kathy hit redial, and after the re-connecting ring picked up, Jack said, "Wherejago? I kept talking. What did you hear last?"

"Something after the Bible part, but Jack..." she pleaded toward her phone, "Jack, can you have Luke and Roger come back? There's one more thing I need them to look for up there in that corner. It was under the chaise lounge."

"Honey, that chaise lounge is gone. The whole room is just a pile of burned roof and ceiling. The poor guy could barely get around up there."

"But did he look under that lounge?"

"Kate, I don't know. I wasn't up there. They were afraid the whole thing was going to cave in. Luke had to wear a harness and Roger held the rope. But if they knew you were on your way here now, I know they would have stayed, and I know they'd come back if you really want them to. That was the last thing they said when they drove off."

"Please, Jack, ask them if they could please come back. I'm halfway home." Strange that the word home still came so naturally for a house no longer there.

When Kathy pulled into their horseshoe driveway, Luke and Roger were already setting up their tall step-ladder again, careful not to let it lean on the weakened wall. Jack met her and walked her toward the things beyond the open garage door. Kathy saw the old Bible, and her heart sank. It was black, and even from a short distance, she could smell the wretched smoke that made it so.

"Will the Bible air out do you think?" she asked Roger, who was holding the bottom of the ladder for Luke as he harnessed up.

"I'm afraid not," he said. "Any material that is not consumed by the fire just soaks in all the smoke like a sponge. Imagine the smoke-house effect of all those hours, and it's not just wood smoke--it's a toxic combination of all the other stuff that burned. If you touch any of those things, you'll have to wash your hands a long time to get rid of that smell."

Kathy just nodded, remembering how Jack's gloves had to be washed twice after simply handling a few items the week before.

At the top of the ladder, Luke climbed through the broken window again, assuring Kathy that he was happy to do his best if she would just tell him where to start looking for whatever it was.

"It's a gold box--not real gold just gold cardboard. I think it was under the foot of a chaise lounge where I read in that room."

The fireman said nothing, but the words "cardboard" and "box" made him feel hopeless in advance.

Kathy continued her instructions from below: "The box was under the end of the chaise, and the foot of it faced the center of the room... so you might want to start near the center of the room."

Only two corner walls remained of this space that was now a gauntlet of sorts. Finding its "center" was a challenge. They could hear the dull, heavy sound of charred timbers being carefully hefted aside. Then some black fabric and stuffing fell from the window. It was upholstery.  "Was this the chaise lounge?" Luke asked as another large clump of soggy material dropped to the ground.

"I can't tell, but if that is near the center, that must be it. The box was under it," Kathy explained again, but her voice faded as the absurdity of her request hung in the air. She remembered that the spot she was describing was only a few feet from where the charred Bible had been...and it had been behind glass. What chance did this box have?

Luke stepped to the window to take a breather. "I can't lift this couch-thing or see under it. There's too much other stuff on top, and it's falling apart... so I'm trying to dig through it. To be honest, I'm not sure it'll work, but I'll keep digging."

Luke stood framed in the window looking down. His face was blackened by soot and ash. His gloved hands were just as filthy. Kathy was about to concede to him that it's no use, but he smiled and stepped out of sight again before she could speak. More wet stuffing dropped down as if to assure her he was making progress.

The look of lost hope on Kathy's face prompted Jack to step closer. From his pocket he showed her a cute picture they'd found earlier in that melted file. It was of her at age three.

"Here, Kate.  There are more over there on your mom's stove." It was an attempt to lighten the moment as the unseen activity in the upper room was drawing to a fruitless end.

Kathy looked at the snapshot from 1955 and smiled. It was an unexpected treasure. Looking past herself and the cake, she remembered the Formica table and matching chairs were once new, and the roaster stand which had been a wedding present in 1952 was sold at the estate sale in 2010. All those things had been in our childhood home for decades, but they were gone now, and life went on. "It's all just stuff," she sighed, a reminder she had thought to herself many times since the fire.

[Here another explanation about fire may be in order: Have you ever dropped a paper cup in a campfire to see it burn up and leave behind the perfectly shaped ashes of the paper cup? Somehow the thing holds its shape even after its been consumed by fire? I've watched the ash-shadow of such a cup keep its shape until I touch it with a stick, and then poof its gone. Well, what I am about to tell you must have been something like that.] 

"Okay, Kathy," Luke shouted without coming to the window, "I think I see a box, but it's not gold. I'm afraid, it's burned to a crisp. It looked like a box... until I touched it, but it's just falling apart."

"That's okay," Kathy shouted up to the window. " You tried, Luke. Thank you for trying."

Roger prepared to switch from holding the rope to holding the ladder so Luke could come down, but no one came to the window.

What Kathy could not see was what Luke strained his eyes to see in the hole he had dug through the stuffing. He had tried to lift the box-shaped thing, but like the paper cup in the campfire, it had disintegrated. The lid had crumbled in his hands. The sides likewise crumbled. Only the bottom of the box remained somewhat intact. That is... the bottom and what had been above it. And that was the thing he was straining to see, and once he saw what it was, he slumped to the floor to gather his composure. He could not believe his eyes.

There in the that black corner of two walls full of melted shapes and charred timbers and drifts of ash where carpet had once been, Luke knelt down, took off his sooty gloves, and carefully picked up the only thing of it original color in the room. He blew away the ash and saw the thing was brown. It was leather. It was bound like a large important book. The page edges were gold-leaf, and each page was still perfect. He slowly walked to the window and held the object over his head as if it were the Stanley Cup.

"Is this what you were hoping to find?" He asked, as if he didn't know.

Kathy saw what he held and burst into tears and uncontrollable laughter. Between sobs and deep breaths she just kept saying "Thank you, God... Thank you, God."

Luke descended the ladder holding his prize safely in one hand and he then handed it to Roger, "Here, you give it to her. I'm a mess."

Roger was speechless. Jack was speechless. Kathy was crying, trembling, and blowing her runny nose. She shook her head in disbelief and finally took the object in her hands.

It was their wedding album from 1975. Her furrowed brow seemed to ask "how?" She held it to her nose. There was no smell of smoke at all. She opened each page. Not a smidge of smoke or scorch of heat. How could that be? she thought but then remembered the Hebrew children in the fiery furnace (Daniel 3:27). She did not say this aloud, but that was her very thought. It was nothing short of a miracle.

She was still unable to form a complete sentence or utter anything other than "Thank you, God" which gradually became a simple "Thank you" directed at the two men standing before her.

Luke was a bit choked up himself. "I couldn't believe it," he said, "The box was destroyed, it crumbled away when I tried to pick it up, but this... well, it is literally the only thing in that room that wasn't black. At first I thought it must have been the wet stuffing that saved it--but the room was on fire and caved in by the time our hoses doused it. That's why the box burned. How it survived I'll never know."

"Thank you for coming back," Kathy said between tears. "I just had to see if it was there. Until today, I thought every inch of the house was gone."

"It was, Kathy," Luke said. "All but that mess up there, and it's barely holding together."

Roger added, "We should knock it down before the next heavy snow."

 "I can't believe it," Luke said again. "That's literally the only thing in the house untouched by the fire--not even singed."

"And no smell at all," Kathy said again holding it again near her face. "I thought it was gone. I've told everyone it was gone. I need to call my granddaughter. She prayed we would find a treasure, and today we found my mother's button tin, our family Bible, these praying hands, this picture, and now this: our wedding book."

She handed the book to Jack, "Our wedding book, Honey. It's a miracle. You know it is. This is a miracle. God saved it..."

Jack put his arm around her, unable to say a word, and gave her a kiss. A tear slid down his cheek to his chin and dropped down on the open page of the picture of his bride. Jack wiped it gently away, and Kathy took the hand in her own and kissed the dampened fingers.

"Up from the ashes," she smiled. All else blurred in her brimming eyes.

*************

This is their wedding book exactly how it looks now. (The photo was taken at the friends home where they have been staying for more than two weeks.)

*************

*"Up from the ashes" is a literary allusion to the mythical Legend of the Phoenix. Since ancient times and in many cultures, the story of the phoenix (or "firebird") is one of renewal, new life, and multiple "second chances," for it is in the death of the phoenix in a fire that the bird is born again, and up from the ashes it takes flight to begin again. A similar metaphor is echoed in Isaiah 61:1-3, which says, [The Lord will] "...give them beauty for ashes and the oil of joy in place of mourning...."

On December 29, 2019, the morning after the fire, Julie and I stood singing in the worship service in our church in west Michigan. We were struggling with the news of the fire as we sang two praise songs that make use of the "up from the ashes" metaphor: "Resurrection" and "Raise my Hallelujah."  (The chorus proclaims: "Up from the ashes/ hope will arise..." It's a refrain that replays in my spirit ever since Kathy told me this true story.)

In hindsight, the fact that our church sang those two songs the morning after the fire (in a church that had not yet heard about it) strikes me as no more coincidence than hearing of a praying nurse who served Kathy without an appointment or of this wedding book being protected in a crucible of flames.

One of Kathy's four brothers,
Tom Kapanka

© Tom Kapanka, Janyary 12,, 2020: 169,970