'The Christmas We Walked On The Ice' by Sarah Jasmon

Ice forms in stages on the canal. The first ice is thin and delicate, clean and brittle. It stretches across the surface like a membrane, moving with the water below. If you listen carefully, you can hear when it snaps. If you throw a stone, this first ice explodes into glittering rhomboids, and it gives itself up at the first hint of sun. But, though it doesn't last, it prepares the way. If the following night is clear, the air cold enough to leave breath hanging on the air and crystals forming on each blade of grass, the ice will form in a solid plate, lined imperceptibly by the diagonal ripples caught in freeze frame beneath. In the morning this ice has a deceptive steadiness. A thrown stone will bounce, reverberating from the surface, the aural equivalent of the expanding circles of a stone in water. Another such night and there is strength enough to hold a dog's weight.