Rob Schackne #1003 - Hieroglyphic Ice

             
            Hieroglyphic Ice


              All that's carved in ice, to mix
              to not exist, in fact to melt 

              stories to flood, messages to chaos

              fires of the desert to cold winds

              transmutation simplified
              where this finally left us–

              if all else is run-off, I salute
              the elements of concentration

              sliding, no arrest to the edge
              hands writing history in air

              it was all spelt out in ice
              words lost before they began

              dropped in frozen memory
              carried by waves in the storm

              now let us think of pyramids
              of running feet, of burning glass

              and why the old river flooded
              when once we lived upon a time



The title of the poem, its inspiration and shoulder, and many of the words in couplets 1 & 2 are courtesy of the Australian poet Linda Stevenson.