Tangled Reflections

Day 136: Not a foot of man or creature had disturbed the snow so gently laid across the coarse litter which customarily affronts the eye at the Mineral Lake fishing dock, masking refuse with natural beauty for the moment. I hesitated stepping there, not wanting to disturb the rare harmony between Nature and construct. Yet step I did once I had spotted the sleeve of a lawn chair forgotten by some angler, tied in plain sight by its drawstring, unnaturally bright against the tones of water, dark hills and snow. I was impelled forward by the sight of what I believed to be a waterfowl unknown to me, a bird which in fact turned out to be nothing more than snow and twigs of huckleberry projecting from the stub of a submerged stump. If not entirely disappointed by this revelation, I turned to leave. It was then I saw these tangled reflections of the shoreline.

In such simple things, do I find great pleasure; that an untidy hodepodge of berry vines and twigs which in summer might be called unsightly can in winter transform into loveliness with the touch of a different brush. A good morning, this.