Poem about the kids sleeping

1/10/09
North Window

The north wind and the county-funded north window are meeting tonight.

The cold comes through the place where the frame is no longer square.
A folded blanket half stops the cold.

Lower, on the floor, the eldest is safe between a nook of wall and a nest
of goose down underblanket.
The youngest turns over, into the turtle of babyhood, his crown now pushed warm against his pillow. I wake and cover him again.

Beneath the window myself, I need my hat as sleepers have for centuries.
If I can stretch my legs warm down the bed, I rest, and there is nothing to say about the night tomorrow.

Care was taken to place this house, and build its walls,
but the wind has its own cares.
The safety in this house is real. Where the wind and the window meet, I would not sleep out there.