“The Rev. Robert Walker Skating on Duddingston Loch” by Kathleen A. Wakefield (poem)

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        Portrait in oil, Sir Henry Raeburn, c. 1795

I’d like to think it’s late Saturday afternoon, sky on fire,
sermon finished, and he’s happy to be skating
alone, the village children gathered in for early supper and bed.
Then again, this might be a method of composing
just shy of dancing’s pleasure.

Dressed in black skates with red laces,
black leggings and coat, wide-brimmed black top hat
tipped back from flushed cheeks and pointed nose,
he cuts a fine figure against the green ice,
one leg swept up behind him, arms folded across his chest.

Drawn, it seems, by his steady gaze, does he lean 
toward thoughts of the heaven he hopes for,
or the house ahead and his supper?
He’ll stay out there as long as he can.

This poem is from Grip, Give and Sway by Kathleen A. Wakefield (Los Angeles: Silver Birch, 2016).

Kathleen A. Wakefield (born 1954) is the author of two books of poetry: the prize-winning Notations on the Visible World (Anhinga, 2000) and Grip, Give and Sway (Silver Birch, 2016). She was a recipient of the University of Rochester Lillian Fairchild Award and has received grants from the New York State Foundation for the Arts, the Constance Saltonstall Foundation, and Mount Holyoke College. She taught creative writing at the Eastman School of Music and the University of Rochester and has worked as a poet-in-the-schools. She is also a singer, mainly of sacred and classical music.