Peter M. Leschak, Letters from Side Lake

Again and again, the ice sheet groaned. The rumble echoed off the trees, punctuated now and then by a sharp crack. As my ears adjusted I heard other, distant groanings—the expanding ice of nearby lakes. In deep winter the snow muffles the eerie music of the ice, but on this night all the lakes were cold and bare. I was listening to a symphony of freezing lakes, massive sheets of ice releasing the stress of their growth in heaving cracks that wailed slowly in birth. It transfixed me with its simple, awesome power. Nothing that any man could ever do would change the tune of the ice.

Cross posted: field | work