January 11: Icing in

The patch of water behind the Seabright Dam on the Megunticook River--the very patch of water that I can see from my office--has been contracting and expanding through our various freezes and thaws this winter. Every morning I scan the river before heading inside. It hasn't iced in completely, yet, but it's close, such a small strip of water remaining that even the little buffleheads have flown upstream to where there's more open water to paddle around in. And tonight's cold and snowstorm might be all it needs to ice over all the way across, linking the two banks, stilling the water visible to me above the dam. Even below the dam, rushing water falls almost unseen under a wide, rippled curtain of ice. Slowly the world turns static and white. The water molecules lock together. And grow still.

No ice-skating yet.
River's icy door closes
slowly this winter.