Ice flowing where once did water.
The land is dry.
What once flowed freely is freezing mid stream, caught in its course, suspended in an interrupted surge, as the streams solidify, each into a leaden grey mass like congealed molten lava.
The flow of water is arrested in ice. No more than a trickle slips beneath the thick surface and carries down the mountainside. You can hear the seep so faint as you stand by the ice flow, that which was once an open creek, hold your breath and listen.
Little water makes it to the Big River. She is muted, subdued now, with a burdensome coat of ice weighing heavy upon her breast as she lies back and rests with long shadows of low sunlight above her and the smooth and sluggish freezing flow beneath. Suppressed streams still faintly feed her. Her hunger subsides. She too closes her eyes, turns within, and sleeps.
the freezing of the Rio Grande.