Winter bucket: ice blue

Winter bucket

 

Overnight, in the bucket,

the cement-marked, grime-stained black bucket

catching shed roof rain,

a magical garden has grown, a frosty forest

sending feathered fingers reaching down from the rim,

hugging the sides where the water is coldest.

 

The ice is fragile, melting almost instantly

even in the shade on this winter morning,

takes on weird and wondrous forms,

the edges sharp and crisp,

catching colour from its surroundings,

reflecting the low solsticial sun.

 

Here are spruce tree look-alikes, there jagged icicles,

with frilled geometric shapes, and ridge after ridge

of sculptured landscapes, Antarctica in miniature,

in mauves and jade and indigo.

 

Minutes later, the blades are blunted, the ice invisibly

melting, the fleeting magic over.

I clear broken shards from the bucket surface,

my hands stinging painfully from the cold,

and await tomorrow’s jewelled hoard.

 

 

Published in Star Tips 110, finalist Winter Competition,

Voted 3rd by Tipsters

 

Done