Napo 11

I'm still riffing off of yesterday's prompt to write about weather related regionalisms. I'm loving this article about them.

Here's my poem:

A Testament of Ice

I sit down to my morning coffee,

Turn on the news. The weathergirl,

A modern oracle in a tight red dress,

Forecasts another day of heat,

One of countless in this record-breaking summer.

It’s going to be as hot as Hades, kids,

She says and I believe her. Yes, that’s where we’re going,

All of us. A continent away, a glacier sits

Atop the world in dominion, gazing

Out at the ocean. One must have faith

In glaciers, their ice spanning miles and miles,

Keeping the balance of summer and winter,

Life and death. Even here in Texas,

I can feel the ice, how it holds us

In its hands, how time has shaped

This terrible beauty, how it slices

Into the landscape, making even mountains move.

These titans quench the forests,

Fill the rivers that feed into our water spouts

That wash our faces clean each morning,

Here in this urban paradise where glaciers

Are but an idea one must have faith in

Without seeing or touching. Meanwhile,

Another iceberg moans as a piece of it

Succumbs to the slow death, a crown

Of thorns made of heat fastened

To its forehead as rivers run down

Its turquoise face. It slips into ocean,

Seals fate—

The prophecy fulfilled.