Poetry

I watched from the tower as you left your mother’s embrace,

Svalbard’s kingdom of winter

Do you have a God to pray to?

 

I saw the sun rise from the corners of the earth,

Painting the sky in a trail of auburn fire

Wondering if you could shed tears,

If they would linger on your fur, as you leapt on the lone glacier

 

Across from you they build fortresses of metal

Extracting the blood of the earth, fabricating graves from your ancestor’s blood

 

I saw your stark white paws gliding through living waters,

Searching through the underwater realm of ice structures, and blue dominions unexplored

 

Running from the cold that once brought you comfort

Fleeing from the goddess that birthed you in the snow

 

I watched as you glided with the fish,

Raking your claws through their silver backs,

Brushing along their shining scales as they swarmed around you,

Singing the songs of the ocean, the hidden world

 

As you leave behind your glacier home,

I hear your prayers in the water