BLUE ICE

A couple of weeks ago I was in Vermont for the funeral of an old friend, Cate Stratton. Cate’s brother Bob and I met at Oberlin, and we’ve been close ever since. He introduced me and Shelly to his family in 1983 when we were traveling in Australia and were headed to Asia. His parents, Bob and Carol, put us up for two months in Manila. We spent Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years’ with them. And we got to know Bob’s sisters Susan and Cate. For about ten years after we were part of the incredible Stratton carnival of family and friends, a sprawl of good living, travel, intelligent conversation, great art, great food. Cate was always the leader, the jewel in  the crown. When Cate arrived the party started, and sadly, it ended a few weeks ago for her. What came out of it for me was reconnecting to this family I’ve always loved and who shaped who I am as a person. I found there dozens of others like me, swept up in Bob and Carol’s generosity and grace over the years, and who loved Cate beyond description. They are strong people. To see sons who lost a mother, a brother and sister who lost a sibling, a mother and father who lost a daughter, and friends who lost a soul that filled out their own, was heartbreaking. To be included was amazing. I wrote a poem and posted it earlier, about the loss, and the loss lately of so many. But I wanted to write something more, and on the long, beautiful drive from Vermont to Ithaca, through the strange moods of rural devastation and beauty, I kept looking through the window at the frozen lakes, ponds, creeks and rivers. And I wrote this. Which I want to share with the Strattons, as the small thing I can do for the big thing they have done and continue to do.

Blue Ice

The frozen lake along the road is blue
Not the blue of sky or pilot lights
But of lichen inching on a rock and mildew
The drowned trees rising like knights
In opaque glass, their lances high
Limbs broken at the cleft. It flows
Into a river, plates of ice lie
Piled up as the jams break, crows
Cry overhead disrupted broken notes
Of panic as the shattered water floats
Off through sky in a minor key
The unmeasured music of catastrophe.