Another sunny day in the rain forest. Aki trots between an old friend and me along the forested edge of Auk Lake. It was near freezing when we started but is now warming toward the projected high of 57. Spider silk and remnant ice draw dominate the walk.

The silk, spread taught between the twigs of a blue berry bush with bark already blushing red with spring sap, appears and disappears as a faint breeze moves it in and out of the light. Each pulse presents and withdraws in less than a second a linear rainbow of color. In wet areas not yet reached by the morning light, velum-thin sheets of ice form mazes of interconnected ice feathers. Each ice sheet is as monochromatic as the spider tightropes are prismatic.