Watching the Pond
I'm watching the pond freeze behind my house... slowly as the snow starts to accumulate. I have my cozy little porch and my warm little fire, but those licking flames cannot extend their reach to the pond.
The snow is growing deeper on the banks and in the fields, and the first little crystals of ice start to form around the edge of the pond. The snow immediately covers the thin veneer of ice, claiming the territory as it's formed.
I periodically go back to my book and my cocoa, but my gaze quickly comes back around to the pond. A crust is forming... encroaching further into the mass of the pond. A cardinal is watching now too, perched in the bare hedge framing the scene. At first it seemed like he was watching ME, but I now realize, he's watching the encroaching ice WITH me. The snow flakes are getting bigger, like little clumps of snow gathering up in the sky before they head to Earth...but there is no sky now, not from my perspective. The cardinal looks up too, seemingly pondering the same sky. I think we're gonna' get more snow than everyone expected.
The snow is accumulating faster and the shoreline is becoming less obvious. The dim silver light is throwing a surreal filter over late afternoon; the observant cardinal standing in stark contrast seems to emit light, jumping out of the monochrome background like a color-splash photo. I can literally see the ice forming over the surface of the pond now...liquidity has lost the battle. The deepest part of the pond is succumbing and the snow is already trying to claim it all. They feed each other, the ice and the snow...both pursuing the same goal.
The contours of the snow are becoming more and more subtle as it piles up on the ground, and the action moves to the trees and the hedges. The snow sticking to every little twig and branch now, and the birds sticking to the same. The cardinal shakes off some flakes; he looks my way and cocks his head slightly, like he's wondering why I'm still out here, and then bursts into flight and disappears into the silvery glow of the snow. I stand up and shake off the few flakes that have found my porch blanket, take one more look at the imprint of what was once the pond, and retire to the depths of my Earth-lodge to take in the rest of the show from there. This one will run into the night...