By Peter Kovarik
I was alarmed watching the polar express steaming through the country.
Wondered where my gloves and the fur hat were stashed
when someone on the radio played the Skaters Waltz.
The waves of sweet dancing tunes washed over me
and sent me back in time to glide on the gleaming ice.
After school I grabbed my skates and headed for a date.
Sound of music and a happy buzz was coming from a neighborhood skating rink.
In summer the lowly soccer field by magic became ice paradise.
With our skates on and holding hands, we joined the crowd and let the
tunes and rhythms of the Viennese waltz guide us as we circled the rink.
Years later, I also went on a skating date.
There, the winter was much colder, and the girl spoke the tongue of Peter the Great
The day was bright and sunny, the sidewalks just passages between high walls of snow.
Our skates ready, we entered not a fancy city skating rink
but a vast Gorky Park, siding up to a frozen river.
Miles of its hiking trails were covered with hard ice.
No sweet music ushered us on as we held hands and dodged the traffic
along its narrow paths.
Stands with hot chocolate gave us hope and kept us alive.
With envy I eyed the guys sporting long speed blades and whizzing by
on a straight track next to the frozen Moscow River.
Did she notice, I wondered and drowned my harmed pride in another cup of chocolate.
We lived in Connecticut in the 1980s and loved to go hiking and skiing
at Huntington State Park.
Its frozen lakes were pure delight to winter lovers like us.
Skaters Waltz was not needed, the joy of speed and pirouettes filled our heart
Soon the catchy tune came back with a vengeance
as we stopped at the skating rink in New York one Sunday.
The skating crowd at the Rockefeller’s center might have lacked the grace and decorum
the piped music implied,
but the sheer joy of happy people and their shrieking kids more than made up for it.
