After presents, after the meal, a walk
in the woods. Four adults and four children,
five to ten, reluctant to leave new toys behind.

Yet sticks and rocks whet imagination;
a stream crossing requires strategy;
spontaneous gamecraft arises outside a screen.

Young cousins conspire in creating fun,
play evanescent games of their own making,
making the gifts of the day seem a waste.

And to hear the youngest not just not complain,
but crest a rise and reflexively exclaim
over a snow-tinged scene, gratifies the adults

like the glimpse of a deer bounding away,
a fleeting feeling we would love to encounter
every ordinary day, as if each one were a gift.

A gift of a poem from Devon Marsh.

Devon Marsh served as a U.S. Navy pilot before a career in banking. The only course he ever dropped in college was an elective on poetry. His poems have appeared…