Moaning Lake

 

  

The lake is cold, with a glass clear still surface               

It lays uncomplaining through most of the year.             

High in the Swiss mountains one finds this place            

Reflecting high peaks and dark forest on its face,            

Through blue summer, crystal transparency here           

Showing late, this year winter will finally appear.         

As night time temperature creeps to a seasons low        

What is in store now invisibly wakes from sleep.           

Underwater phantom cloak spreading slow, slow          

Like a spider spinning a meticulous silk web below,      

Cold splinters shaped like icy fingers silent creep          

Art design, stitch by icy stitch will outward sweep.

Then starts the stretching to the still waters rippling

Nightly drawn further from the edges or the shoreline;

Transformation as inch by inch the face is wrinkling

Ageless reaching side to side sets surface glistening,

   Frozen blanket spreads as lake breathes a sigh benign

                            The rigidity of rock, yet malleable as a cobweb fine                             

As if struck by a ghostly wizard’s evil freezing spell        

The daily eye witness sees every change at a glance.     

Miraculous to behold a soft surface now frozen well     

One wonders for the fish that beneath the ice do dwell. 

From liquid to iron strength in an unstoppable dance;      

Children throw rocks before a step forward to chance. 

Fresh snow soon spreads a sparkling cover side to side      

Efficiently hiding faults that are precariously under.     

Loud as a rifle shot sound each new movement wide,    

Though depth of ice deepens, sloth slow, can it glide,          

As nature’s strength fires fearful cracks to tear asunder

Power, unstoppable with the growth of such a wonder.

Then starts the low tone of alarming mystic moaning     

Like the sound as great whales make a call their mate.   

Sad ghoulish cry for mercy begging or for sin atoning  

Glacier like creeping unable to hold back the groaning; 

Frequency increases whilst chilly lake accepts her fate 

Eerie repetitive moans to surrounding mountains relate. 

Breathtaking spectacle rewarding all watchers transfixed   

Holds tourist and resident in equal wide eyed awe. 

Walkers on lakeside paths, adults and children mixed  

All stop and stare and wait, in sight and sound betwixt; 

Forgetting other mountain noises of bird tweet or caw

Miracle of winter time remembered clear for ever more.