I C E Come the Unlocking, it gouges trenches fifty miles long in the lakebed of Erie and warps the massive steel valves of the Welland Canal. It crushes to matchwood the fishing shacks left in the hope of one more weekend of drink. Piling on the points, it tears out trees undermined by wake. Abandoned elevators and moorings pay their annual length of wall. The hulk of the Eastcliffe Hall creeps a few more yards its aborted journey to the sea. But tonight the ice is flat and serene, smoothness endless as Siberia. Water from half the continent filters unseen between the shoals and islands. I follow the track of a snow machine far out on the ice 'til cheeks sting and fingers numb, out to the ship channel and beyond, toward Canada, to watch the gravid moon, majestic as a blue heron rise before I turn and walk back, shivering clear-headed toward the lesser lights of the roadhouse. Poem © Dale Hobson. Engraving © Greg Lago. All rights reserved.