love poems for glaciers

Written as part of the participatory project, Love Letters for Glaciers.

A light spread out

So specific, so open

Welcome home

So we go looking at the edge

(The most vulnerable phase)

Here is where things grow

Dreaming with other people

A new language that is also a poem

A constellation of syllables

The story was collision

Rapid gradient changes

A blue index

Crystalline structures of ice

Knots that fit together

Continents configured

Here we are at the end of the world

Mapping boundaries

Glacier shapes from memory

Turning like the hand of a clock

Across meridian lines

Finding secrets in the ice

Ice has variable density

Glacial pulse

Like breath, like breathing

Pay attention:

We need to be concerned with lateral flux

Different storylines for the future

Mapping collective vulnerability

The hydraulic consequences

Of upstream changes

These bright days

Finding evidence of landscape

In the boundary layer

Writing love letters

To the tidewater

Recording the topography of loss

Tying a butterfly

(In flight)

Now we can hold time

Touching the past

Physical pieces of a system

Telling a story

When storms form

We find shelter from the wind

On this narrow spectrum of light

What kind of world do you want?

There are possible lines of flight

Topographic variability

Mapping boundaries

A narrow spectrum of light

Rapid gradient changes

Glaciers have memory

Slivers of lost time

A blue spectrum

Slice through the atmosphere

See those horizons within it

A glossary of knowledge

A light spread out

Across that blue edge –

That was forever

Touching the past

Physical pieces of a system

Slivers of lost time

Into fissures and cracks

And watermelon snow

Our expedition begins

Telling a story of

Soil structure

A slice through the atmosphere

An astonishing geologist

Stretches to the moon

Lighter than the water in the ocean

Losing ice to the ocean

Sensitive to light

Part of the building process

Tracing water

To find a lens of ice

Ocean geometry

All our wild days

Surrounded by water

Measuring time travel

Fields of ice

Another kind of ocean

A blue spectrum

We are living on an island

Finding a lucid balance

A belief system

Look into the depths of the ocean

See those horizons within it

A different planet

Imagining a u-shaped valley

Lenticular clouds forming

An echo sounding

How much ice will be lost?

Witnessing profound changes

We will redraw maps

Crossing the border

Clouds of ice beneath us

Sliding on the interface

Every time there is loss

The hydraulic consequences

Friction along the margins

An experiment in the margins

Communicating between two systems

Tracing human geography

This used to be an ocean fjord

The confluence of water –

Glaciers have memory

Look into the depths of the ocean

What kind of world do you want?

The expedition begins

We will redraw maps

Ocean geometry

A new language that is also a poem

Dreaming with other people

Imagining a u-shaped valley

Evidence of the landscape

Finding secrets in the ice

Witnessing profound changes

This is the point of the story

The answer cannot be found here

There is another way of knowing

Look up into that blue space

Passing through a cloud

Telling time –

That was forever

The state of atmosphere

The stratosphere of looking

Translated into different languages

Talking about variables

Things we care about

A glossary of knowledge

All the ways we are evolving

Defines how much energy is in the system

The sensitivity to change

Lover of wilderness:

Pause for thought

Feel this belonging

It fell from the sky

(A discreet distance)

The water that exists beneath the ice

A boundary between

The fluxes and the fates

A flash of understanding

Telling a story

An echo sounding

The history of flow

Tracing water

Losing ice to the ocean

Recording the topography of loss

Uncertainty is an exponent

Driving phase change

So specific, so open

Now we can hold time

A constellation of syllables

A blue index

So we go looking at the edge

Measuring time travel

Surrounded by water

Here we are at the end of the world

Touching the past

An experiment in the margin

This used to be an ocean fjord

A different planet

A blue spectrum

Look up into that blue space

Clouds of ice beneath us

Here is where things grow

All our wild days

Lighter than the water in the ocean

Passing through a cloud

Mapping collective vulnerability

The sensitivity to light

The fluxes and the fates

These bright days

Lenticular clouds forming

Crossing the border

Another kind of ocean

The confluence of water

Fields of ice