Like Melting Cake

"MacArthur's Park is melting in the dark
All the sweet, green icing flowing down
Someone left the cake out in the rain."

                           ~Richard Harris, MacArthur's Park

Morning After the Snow

No Silver Trails

Melting Cake

Wrong Way Geese

If you're laughing at these lyrics, I know who you are! Despite the absurdity of what is a beloved Glen Campbell song to me, I get it. My early winter world is melting like a cake this morning.

Gray clouds cling to the western ridge, obscuring the Selkirks from view. Elmira Pond is dark in contrast to the slippery slush of white that encircles the water, willows and reeds. No silver trails mark the paths of migratory visitors; they are gone as I knew one morning they would be.

All around me the sounds of melting--that sweet, white icing--is flowing down in noisy rivulets. If I close my eyes and listen, it almost intones like the steady patter of rain. But the sky is not precipitating; the clouds hang in silence having given up their moisture like spent tears.

My bare feet flop around in Todd's white tennis shoes. Seriously, I need some outdoor boots of my own. I slosh snow into the shoes and the effect of the icy cold is like that of an ice cream headache. Socks might have been wise.

Two geese honk overhead, flying north. Isn't that the wrong way? Maybe they truly are seeking MacArthur's Park, or the lake by the same name north of us a few miles. Then silently, not a honk nor a whisper of working feather, a lone tundra swan flies over.

With a long neck that makes the huge bird resemble a living concord jet, I can see its black beak clearly. Elegant wings span to pump air and there I stand in my husband's shoes with cold feet and and empty camera. Yes, I left the memory card in my laptop.

So you'll just have to believe me that a tundra swan graced this melting cake of morning.