By the Lake

My lake is freezing over, a gorgeous exercise to watch as it transforms into swirls and spirals and glossy whiteness. The water is warmer than the air above it, and mist rises from the surface in cottony clouds as elegant ripples, billows and eddies are forming in the shallow water along the shore.

When I look down, I can see fragile relics resting on the bottom, the mortal remains of water lilies I photographed here this summer. Beneath those delicate husks, lily roots are sleeping, and it's a gentle reminder that all things turn in season, that next year after the long cold winter there will be waves and water lilies again - there will be herons and bitterns here, loons and ducks and geese. My paddling days are over for now, and the shoreline is another realm now, a cold windy one, but I love being here.

The waves, the rising mist and the odd crackle are the lake's last song of this autumn, its farewell and its soliloquy, a seasonal antiphon sung with the guardian rocks and trees all along its verges. No fair weather friend, I reassure it, saying that I shall visit faithfully all winter when it has frozen over entirely and the snow flies. Don't worry, I tell it, I shall be here.

As with other wild meditations here, my random bloggy musings on rocks, trees, fallen leaves, milkweed pods and morning skies in November, there is much to ponder. I stand shivering in my parka by the freezing water, marveling at the shapes and patterns and colors on the lake and bearing silent witness to something I shall never possess the right words to describe.

Does one really need to describe such scenes? It is enough just to be here in this moment, rocking slowly and mindfully in the lap of the seasons. This morning exercise in the crackling cold is a song.