Ice Fields

The moon, a glowing yellow hammock lying low and lazy in a cold southwestern November sky beckons me to sleep. I watch as my breath rises behind me. The cold keeps me awake. A crisp clarity, a sharp focus as everything has turned to glass. I hear the cut of my skates digging into the ice, pushing sliding me forward to a distant frozen pale pink horizon. I settle into the rhythm of my movement, timing my breathing with the thrust of each leg as I glide. Much drought this summer, rainfall and floods were late, but it is an exceptionally early deep long freeze this year and it came on so fast. So I strapped on my skates and set out. I keep an eye on the liquid below, looking for those unlucky enough to have been caught in the flood before the freeze over. I carry a small ax and torch in my pack to free their rigid bodies and pull a sled to carry them home. Most are thankful that I’ve recovered their loved ones and will pay me with food, or whatever they have for my efforts. Some offer for me to stay with them awhile, out of the cold. I may take them up on their offer and warm by a fire, but their senseless chatter drives me insane. I prefer the emptiness and silence of the ice fields.