First Frost

A mountain broke itself open here, and then, having nothing further to say about it, filled with water. From the rim the lake is a blue so composed it seems to be thinking. Behind it the obsidian flow lies black and unhealed; ahead, ridge after ridge going softer and bluer out toward the Cascades, the way distance eventually forgives every landscape. And all along the edge, every needle sleeved in rime. Each pine a chandelier the night hung and the morning had not yet taken down.