Garden of ice

Was early morning, early January,

the monotony of snow-cover

was broken by grassy shoals 

here and there across the lawn

after a two-week warm spell.

As I walked out back to take 

in the day’s offerings,

I spotted a blue-silver geyser

shimmering in sunlight aslant

under the neighbor’s pear tree,

its lower limbs laced with icicles,

and, strangely, not the uppers,

and the row of mountain laurel

below took on an aura of glaze.

Moving closer I saw a garden hose

with nozzle upturned, shooting

a fountain of fine mist straight up. 

Being neighborly, I turned off

the hose and phoned neighbor Ned,

who swore no one in the household

turned on the hose, convinced it was

some prankster or mischievous vandal

with nothing better to do –

but beauty makes no distinctions,

is what I didn’t say.