Poet Padraig O’Tuama remembered an evening watching the Vanbrugh Quartet perform Dvorak’s String Quartet in F. Beside his sister, sitting on uncomfortable chairs in a wood paneled room, he was spellbound. But, he knew if he shared the story the next day, “I’d fail, and in the failing something would be lost. I held the music and the memory in me like a secret.”

Outside snow danced
against frosted panes.
We had escaped for the weekend
to Monhonk Mountain House,
a chalet hotel tucked
along the shore of a small lake
formed by a glacier
on its way to the sea.

Ringed on all sides
by gradually rising stone hills,
Mohonk Lake
is cut off nicely
from the daily trials
of ordinary life.

Our room,
wood-paneled,
compact enough for just
a bed, dresser, chair
and iron-clad fireplace.
Insulated in our lovely space,
we stacked our ambitious reading pile
on the heavy carved mantel
and turned to start a fire.

The small balcony
held two Adirondack chairs
if we felt brave enough
to hazard the cold.

For three days,
we only ventured out for meals,
content to read,
share the silence,
stoke the fire.

No itinerary guided us,
no pressures forded the door.

When we packed to leave,
I knew I would carry this respite
in my heart
like a balm.