Thin Ice

Thin Ice

Autumn's golden tinsel lay strewn upon on the ground
and everything was silvered from the sky on down,
the birch, the beech, the underside of leaves,
even burnished bedrock grayly gleamed in the half-light
before rain as workmen pound in signposts –
Peligroso, Danger Thin Ice. This one-night icing
melting slow, November's halting foray into winter.
No squirrel will venture out upon the slithered surface,
where stray leaves skate in intermittent bluster.
And the sun hangs limp, a bland and pewter platter.
And later, after midnight's clearing, the bluefire of the stars
trapped like fireflies in amber. Not one will fall through.
A million, million light-years stopped cold and in a moment
in the frosting of a pond.

– Richard Schiffman