January Silence

Yesterday I saw dead grasses
draping into the creek
forming ice-disks, crystalline lilypads
in rows, like some ethereal
high-pitched musical instrument.
An overhanging rock sheeted
with stalactites connected
to stalagmites of ice, like an organ,
made real music—drops falling
into an ice-cup of dripwater.

Today the creek is covered
with faintly shining knobbly bridges,
all music stilled.
Twelve below zero.
The very air seems frozen.
If you struck it, or even shouted,
the whole universe might shatter!
Revealing—what?