Poem Seven: Glacier

The sea is frozen inside me and inside all of us. - Franz Kafka

*

I know this house.

House made of ice

and bone. Requiem 

of white snow. 

Imagine a yellow swallow shaping 

the landscape with its song. 

Can the sound 

of a cello raise the dead?

Shell, bone and feather.

The wilting of water, 

syntax of snow, 

soprano of meltwater, 

alto of the rising tide.

Can music raise the dead?

Possession by water.

Possession-

 by melodies rise like currents

of water traced by the strings 

of a sinking violin. 

Water fills our veins. 

Anchor in the refrain:

let us build a house to live in.

Bone, wood and stone.

Fishing hook and net.

Let the arrow of this song

be possessed by the spirit 

who lives inside 

of the glacier.

Call back the spirit 

who lives inside the glacier.

Call the spirit.

Call the glacier home.

The sea is frozen inside me

and inside all of us.

*