The ice-disk foray was very enjoyable. First, we ate hamburgers at nice little hole-in-the-wall filled with former ice-disk watchers. Then we got lost in Westbrook for a while looking for the ice disk. Then we found it and joined a passel of other Mainers who had nothing better to do on a Saturday afternoon than idle beside a bridge and admire some slowly revolving ice. It's amazing what will entertain us. There we were, with our partners and children and friends and dogs and winter hats and boots and phones, milling slowly around, like a human ice disk, as the ice itself--resembling a sort of two-dimensional moon--turned and turned under the weighty sky.

As my friend Lucy said: "If the aliens land, we'll have to be sure to come back."

* * *

Now I am wondering how the disk is holding up, under this grand snowfall. We are only at the beginning of the storm, a mere four inches down so far. The sky is still blue with night, the streetlights still glowing, and in their triangular light the pale flakes swirl and hiss. The cat, noisily washing, is recovering from the shock of the back steps. If the aliens land, we won't be able to get there today.

 * * *

Snow, the alien breath, sharp as glass, wail of the northlands, tears in armor, scratch of an owl's wing, pale fury, mole's blanket, track map, shovelful of atoms, a sleekened cat

Snow, silencer, a night visitor, burial ground, roots' shelter, a china plate, the slush of angels