Cold and clear,
tint of blue capped
with fairy lace of perm frost.
Light dances and slides off
the expanse of diamond clearness,
reflected on the frost in a rainbow.
Silence is all around as if
the cold had frozen the sound waves.
A touch of color here and there
hints of buried secrets under
a dense cold blanket.
Then came the hot winds of
the Chinook and the sun
of summer days.
The frost went in a cloud of steam,
ice cracked and groaned
before it ran into a roaring stream.
Buried shapes emerge.
Call to the archeologist.
Grid by grid the field is marked off
like an orderly cross word puzzle.
Inventory is taken and careful lists
prepared for future study.
Grid 1A produced one large fish
caught in a death motion for
a near eternity.
Then in 1B there were bowls of soup
saved from a too big batch.
Frozen fruit and vegetables are off
to the trash.
Labels from past glory stick
to the shelves.
The river flows faster
as the melt becomes
an erasing of years of frozen history.
A lake is formed and drained
to avoid the development
of a swamp land.
The annual defrosting of the freezer
is complete.
July 16, 1995