We all were prone to red cheeks in the wintertime.

Even inside the house:

One teacher in junior high loudly proclaimed I looked like one of the Campbell Kids when I arrived at school, winded, after bicycling to school.

That last hill was long and steep. Had I not been still out of breath, I’d have sassed the bum.

Mom loved the reds of winter, and wrote this poem a quarter century ago.

Winter Red

Clap for color
holly winterberry
come caps and cheeks
and flying scarves of children
and a round red Santa
swinging his wild bells
in scarlet sequence

~ joan vayo ~ November 30, 2000

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“Winter Red” ©2000  Joan Vayo. All rights reserved.

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