Frigid wind
skips white-whipped
over impossibly rich key-lime
waves on Lake Pend Orielle’s north curve.

Winter holds a frozen moat around the land
a thousand feet out from the shore, in a
shining gray steel embrace. Curling
round the moat’s edges, on the
waterline, a ragged, crusted
ridge of ice, each lap
of waves freezing
it fresh
white

Here
hungry wild
geese stand sharply
peering, perched to plunge in
for a fish between the bobbing shards
of ice set free by a temporary thaw, and
between the hundreds of protruding feet
and tail feathers of their busily
searching fellow mates.

They always seem
to know where
the fishing
is fine.

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(C)2002 Rosemary J. Gwaltney