Out of Sight

The ice thickened further overnight.  Walking along the river from the Rt. 4 bridge upstream to the Middle Bridge this morning, the visible water played peekaboo:  now you see me, now you don't.  With no discernible pattern, running sinuous leads split the ice for tens or hundreds of yards on the stretch between the two bridges.  Ice covered most of the Ottauquechee from bank to bank.  The freeze provided a skin, the living water flowed on beneath, released from time to time.

The view above could be turbulent weather from space.  The shapes, the patterns, the chaos bear witness to the moments when the stream made the transformation to solidity. 

The stream continues 

While an expressionist mass

Waits in place, for now.