Ice, Ice, Baby

The sun is a smudge in the sky and a smear on the ice.

There’s evidence of each turn around the pond. The little aretes of chips frozen on the ice from all the yesterdays after the freeze remind you.

Everyone talks about the washboard feel of it. They’re not paying attention. It’s the sound that’s a thrill. I hear the thrum of the water beneath the slab of ice. The ice lives atop it, really. Alive is not too strong a word. The liquid has been bested and waits its turn, but complains the whole time. All water hates to be in the audience. It seeks the stage, always. Sorry, I’m on it.

There’s wind to whistle in your ears of your own making. The best kind. Even when you steal the breeze in the hot summer in the shadow of your shoulder-of-mutton it’s not your wind. Here you make it.

No hockey. No noise. No fun. Glide.