Ice Core

Far, Antarctica 

and she’s no pushover, though there is a way

through colder than cold, past mines of ice

innocently bobbing by razor straits 

and on to that white world where she has lain 

forever. Beauty asleep, waiting, unwitting,

not for hundreds, but millions of years.

 

Comes the harsh kiss of science, 

penetrating drive to implant stats. 

Track, trace, record. She succumbs, 

no choice but to be woken

to cast aside her veils,

lay bare.

 

Light will uncover the long-forgotten.

Memories surface: layers, timelines.

Does she recall? 

 

The first thrust is the hardest, lasting and deep.

A crisp, hollow crack, a gasp

As bubbles of ancient air are forced

to share their data. Unmasked,

her whole existence unconcealed

as the drill jolts down, slicing ice.

Tree rings but colder, this evidence

has sold her deepest secrets.

 

Each sliver defines her. Time disintegrates,

catalogued. Youth – volcanic flares

leave tell-tale ash. Dust to dust. And thus

we learn which winds caressed her surface,

sometimes sea-salt, weeping through frost.

Is there nothing left to add?

 

At what cost, ages gone, did she lose the trace

of living, breathing forests? 

Myocene,

a lingering dream.

Sheherazade

A willing suspension of disbelief.

 

The Earth is flat. At least that’s one version,

battered by mallets to a thin paper pulp

fine as tissue paper, holes and rips appearing

faster than lies and confusion can be spread.

 

It used to be round, (the other account) 

as Aristotle found centuries ago, or as Magellan

confirmed when he sailed past the edge and didn’t 

fall off. 

 

Now it resembles a Persian rug, yet stripped of 

its enchanting and well-woven designs.

God knows what has been swept underneath –

like a flying carpet even Aladdin can’t control.

To save ourselves from becoming unhinged

we cling to the fringes so we may delay the fall.

 

Scheherazade spins many yarns to her sultan

charms him into sparing her life. Such skill,

such thrilling cliff-hangers every night. He waits

with bated breath for every next chapter.

 

Here, on our flat/round Earth, confused, though

far from spell-bound, we dread each coming episode;

 

we may never know the end of the story, 

better that way perhaps. Dodge the bullet.