The Mountain's Mirror

It’s early September in the mountains. Soon, snow will spill onto peaks and the earth will harden in frost. Trees will drip icicles from their branches. But today is still summer. Clouds bursting with ice crystals are floating somewhere distant. 

This morning, when the sun rose, it raced across the lake as if daring rain to catch it. But I’ve been lying with my fingertips dipped in cold water for a long moment and I’ve watched the sun get its way. The sky is soaked in blue. 

I push my fingers through water, into mud, and silt rises and billows. I try to grab the loose sediment, to stuff it back into the ground, to apologize for marring clearness and shattering stillness. But the flakes drift across the lake until they collide with the mountain’s reflection. 

At dawn, when the sun rushed to bathe the world in light, its rays painted in water what it unveiled on land. The lake’s surface swelled into a summit.

As the sun moved over the mountain, light lifted shadows hidden under scree. The gray sky began to blush. Last winter’s snow, perched high on cliffs, began to sweat. Snowmelt cascaded down the rocks. The lake was so still that when the droplets struck the surface, my fingers—wrinkled from waiting—felt the vibrations.

I lifted my fingers from water into air. My pores sighed. The new day burned my hair golden, but I stayed staring at the mirror the morning had created.