Author: catheraine

After the storm, spindles of ice turn a length of driftwood into a sparkly comb, and a forsaken branch nearby bears ice down to the stone.

Anchored in a resolute stance between jutting shards of rubble, repeated lashings of water and freezing spells have burdened the wooden frame. However, a thousand gale-driven waves have not been able to shake it from its moorings.

A sculpture carved in adversity at the edge of the lake, it resembles a silent harp resting on its side. With strings ever more shellacked as winter deepens, the harp seems both haunted and haunting, a formerly melodic rib cage benumbed by cycles of fear and grief. And as the storms intensify, layers of icy bulk cling more fiercely to the body: a freeze frame of memory rendered visible.

Come the melts of spring, the icy coat dissolves and bare driftwood testifies to the hardship it has endured — rough exterior sanded, an extremity sheared from its host.

Cracked and forgotten, the harp-shaped branch may be flotsam, but it is not an useless instrument. With her strings missing, she is all the more open to the beyond. She still stands and bathes in sparkles. She still sings.

At the freezing point,

wild west wind and lake spray

mantle the trunk, marzipan on a rich cake.

Thickened ice highlights the outer layer

then darkens to charcoal-purple,

legacy of the long drift from forest

to midnight bonfires on the beach.

As it salves driftwood burns,

ice defines the border of a helmet

whose irregular edges soften the dark wedge,

trace translucent deltas that flow,

river to ocean evolution

from eye of shark’s prow

to fearful mammal below.

As I nestle between lakeside boulders, drifted ice drapes me in a veil. Successive layers of frozen water etch a daguerreotype portrait of arrested lava, once-fluid anger trapped by a season so heavy and cold.

Behind my nape, the thickness of the ice is greater, and swirls of gray-blue shadows entwine in smoky tendrils with hints of ash. From my chin, crystal shards have grown into a beard that flows from the seam where my edges meet the lake’s beach below.

The ghostly poncho that almost completely glazes me has left only an egg-shaped tonsure melted by the sun. In a few weeks, spring’s solar ascent will fully dissolve my obscuring cloak, but for now I am content with the small oval that lies exposed to the elements.

One day soon, an exhausted bird will warm its feet on my crown. Resting after miles of migration, my guest will sit for a spell all hunkered down into its feathers. As it turns its beak towards the water, it will flex its wings to the humming thwack of high winds that scour my quiet skin into forgiving sand.

A screen of ice has pinned my body to a puddle.

Caught between the surface and the depths,

my fluted edges have been numbed and blurred,

robbing me of external definition.

The blessed sun has melted my face to visibility,

fooling viewers with its tawny cheer.

In fact, the roots of my smile do not reach the deepest veins,

which await the body’s liberation

from the clutches of cold fear.

Testifying to repressed power,

iced etchings trace the shapes of submerged wings,

wavy carvings that design their whims

as they skate on the very surface they groove.

The stem lives in contradiction;

part of it captured in ice

but the tail released from confinement.

Not gripped by the dark blue crystals,

nor defined by white scratches,

this licensed grace heartens,

strengthens desire for freedom

to be lifted whole from this chill bed.

Hopeful of return to movement,

the blood irrigates polar and temperate veins alike

whether I believe in restoration or not.

If I desire to be more fully alive,

I must warm and be warmed —

fueling faith in winter’s end.