Breaking Up
April 25 1013


In another spring, in the season of love
I watch the lake
breaking up.
A man
standing alone
on an ice-bound shore;

his back to the sun,

lost

in penumbral shadow.

In late afternoon
the water glints blackly.
By morning
a thin crust of ice
is back,
turning to slush
washing over the edge,
in a steady breeze
undulates gently.
Then open water, again,
growing day by day.

Fissures appear,
and heavy wind
cracks them wide,
pans of ice, in every size
kaleidoscopically shifting.
As if in a race to survive
in the shirt-sleeve heat
of a long-delayed spring,
that came late, but quickly.

Until one morning in May
when the lake I remember
reappears
from hibernation.
Only die-hard ice
persisting
in narrow inlets, overhanging shade.

Remnants of a hard winter
that so quickly slipped my mind
in this green and temperate world.

In the succession of seasons
how we forget the feelings
we felt so intensely
let rule our lives.
When we were young, and foolish
and the future set,
impregnable as ice
3 feet thick.

As if every spring
was unexpected,
the fortress of winter
could never end.