A Popsicle of Possibilities

I hear the snapping, the cracking, the slow groaning slide of icicles taking the final plunge. No longer invested one drip at a time, they hurl themselves headfirst down into the snow they sparkled and laughed above before. No longer gems along the crown of my world, nor threatening spikes hanging over my head, they become chunks of glistening reminders that everything changes.

What was up is now down. What was long and sharp and of imminent concern is now mostly a memory, a decoration along the way.

So long out of my reach, now it becomes a puppy chew toy, a little boy's sword, a memento packed in Tupperware and stashed away in the freezer.

Next July it will be an object of delight, a rare and exotic curiosity left over from a warm cold day in February. A frozen rainbow, a snowman's jagged tooth, one candle from a snow cake, a Popsicle of possibilities that grew from a leaky gutter in the afternoon sun of a frigid winter.

Icicle. A simple name for so much magic, so much beauty and and wonder, so much fun and fantasy!