The Frozen Lake

In the cold country of my youth,
I often sought the frozen lake,
drawn to that flat oval without reflection, a tarnished disk.
Nor need I fear my shadow. There
was no sun in that perpetual winter.

My cold eye grazed the loon’s; my hand,
insular in wool, could brush
snow from a dry stalk, intend
no tenderness; my tongue could mesh
its tuneless song with the shrill static
of ice that shuddered but did not crack

the dark mirror. I saw no color:
along the shore the evergreens
were black, the sky a lid overhead. Here were no startling ruins.
simply a stark and lucid emptiness, a glacial mold, a grisaille

remark that neither asked nor gave.
I have not seen a frozen lake
in this mild climate where I live.
Small birds tint the air and speak
softly of felicities.
But sometimes on the nimble breeze

a breath of winter woos me. Straightway I smell ice and hear the creak
of branches, and beneath my feet
I feel the hard, the frozen lake.
I’m compassed north toward the spare;
a core of cold makes my warmth warmer.