River Geometry

 

This morning, the new cold created a wild geometry on the face of the river, a cross between Euclid and chaos.  The white lines inscribed the progress of last night's plunging temperatures. The cold set an edge of ice in place, then new ice would form further out.  The free flowing surface water reveals the deeper, faster channel moving from left to right, between the lines.

Masses of loosely gathered ice particles flowed, swept from quieter, colder shallows, or frozen in motion to a kind of slush.

The ice painted an abstract expressionist sheen on the Ottauquechee, reflective enough to take on sky blue, tree shapes, and long morning shadows from shore to shore.

This is only a presage of winter.  Next week, we expect temperatures in the fifties.