Closing ice

Carlyle ice has scoured inshore past Cape Brumeurie's leopard buoy frozen upright in surprise where the closing ice has wedged it stiff and squeezed the pilings from the harbor bed. Anchor-length pieces burst upward on the cutter's forefoot like splinters from a saw, while floes split for miles with elastic sounds to let dark water open, far astern of two thin-hulled freighters and a trawler following the cutter home.