The cold settles in, quiet as a held breath.
Out back, the lake begins its slow work,
a skin forming where the wind once kept its path clear.
Ice flowers at the edges first,
thin white veins threading through the cove
like a map the night is drawing for itself.
Cedar shadows lie perfectly still on the surface,
dark ribs under new glass.
By noon the whole sheet stiffens,
a pane thick enough to keep the sky’s reflection
from trembling.
Somewhere under it, water shifts,
shouldering against its new ceiling
with the patience of deep things.
I stand with my hands in my pockets,
dogs nosing at the reeds,
listening to the cold move in
line by line.
A season writing itself
in frost-script and silence,
each pattern a reminder
that stillness has its own labor.