Close to the surface of the planet, the zone of most of our activity, thick, silent, monochrome, you are a persistent, implacable presence. Looking out my window, my backyard is hoisted as if on elevator shoes. Next to my walkway, you are a solid two feet thick.
Yet, inert as you seem, I've seen you evolve over the last weeks. New cotton candy on top doesn't disguise the incessant recrystallization going on, at your surfaces very visibly but also deep inside where light wastes itself into darkness. Molecules in formation and in touch trade, redistribute, and reform densified under the relentless tug of gravity.
Day: The dry air pops molecules from your surface. Liquefied one by one by the sun, the molecules trick down through the pack to the frozen ground, then out from under onto sidewalks: your 'blood' running out through your shoes. Leaves and twigs burn into glittery crusts on top of a fretwork of nooks and crannies. Gargoyle shapes are blunted, attenuated, unrecognizable, gone.
Night: The fluid becomes fixed. The jittery motion of molecules calms down. All processes slowed but nothing fully stopped.
You're compacting; your surface is flying away or falling in: a general slow motion vanishing.
But you're not gone, no, not even close. It will take a good while for your whale-like bulk to diminish to disappearance. Spring is two weeks away; the sun is warmer and longer. There's a conspiracy to reduce you from a thick treatise (very thick) to a slim pamphlet to a few torn scraps to nothing at all.
You won't be gone, of course, just transformed. In a few weeks, we'll step over you or around you. You'll speak with another voice, gurgling rather than slumping.
Water, this role of yours these last weeks, this pose you're holding now, is brilliant, impressive, applause-worthy. What a performer you are.
Yet, inert as you seem, I've seen you evolve over the last weeks. New cotton candy on top doesn't disguise the incessant recrystallization going on, at your surfaces very visibly but also deep inside where light wastes itself into darkness. Molecules in formation and in touch trade, redistribute, and reform densified under the relentless tug of gravity.
Day: The dry air pops molecules from your surface. Liquefied one by one by the sun, the molecules trick down through the pack to the frozen ground, then out from under onto sidewalks: your 'blood' running out through your shoes. Leaves and twigs burn into glittery crusts on top of a fretwork of nooks and crannies. Gargoyle shapes are blunted, attenuated, unrecognizable, gone.
Night: The fluid becomes fixed. The jittery motion of molecules calms down. All processes slowed but nothing fully stopped.
You're compacting; your surface is flying away or falling in: a general slow motion vanishing.
But you're not gone, no, not even close. It will take a good while for your whale-like bulk to diminish to disappearance. Spring is two weeks away; the sun is warmer and longer. There's a conspiracy to reduce you from a thick treatise (very thick) to a slim pamphlet to a few torn scraps to nothing at all.
You won't be gone, of course, just transformed. In a few weeks, we'll step over you or around you. You'll speak with another voice, gurgling rather than slumping.
Water, this role of yours these last weeks, this pose you're holding now, is brilliant, impressive, applause-worthy. What a performer you are.
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