“modifications” and “ice whale”

By Corbett Buchly

modifications

1

what is it to divert a river’s course

to detour from centuried habit

to unbalance the world through which

it weaves, are you diminished

on your journey to the sea

do you arrive lost and lesser

engineers surveyed the terrain

parceled the land the way

one divides spreadsheet columns

or lives, the meandering river

presented a dilemma to be parsed

would the river bend to their will

would they shackle this old traveler

2

we begin at the mountain

where water first greets the earth

hearts blossom in the flinty rock

chill air thins our clutches

thin fingers that comfort and waken

we set out by falling

loose scrabble no control, only collision

we rush to get down

like new water still finding its shape

we remember the path

although we have not yet run here

the map emblazoned in blood

among the fine hairs along our hands

still some of us throw our bodies

against the banks in hopes

of knocking loose a little bit

of world of shaking up the known

together we few

may sway this mountain

---

ice whale

like the hungry jaw of a pearl-coated wolf

the crust of ice crunches beneath our boots

as we cross the outer shelf, our drone base

just beyond the transverse ridge ahead

each year we map this iceberg

while algorithms speak to us of mass

that flees like smoke into the broad seas

who would have thought the balance

of life, earth’s thin crust of parasites

would be so tied to the shift of ice and water

on this aged and hulking glacier

as humans spit the ash of spent fuel into air

the long fingers of glacial melt encroach on shorelines

acid levels spread like fire across the deep blue

removing a glove here for more than a few minutes

can lose you more fingers than you can spare

who would know the earth was burning

last night I dreamt I sat naked on the ice

when ten feet away an ice whale surfaced

the sheen of its blue-white skin shimmering

it spewed a fan of the thinnest snow from its spout

which drifted down and lodged like party sparkles

in my stiff hair and I felt my skin freeze

like a hundred angry knives to the icy ground

the spring sun, not seen since October

broke the crust of the horizon

searing my eyes like a blacksmith’s blade

fresh from the burning coke

and then I’m back on my cot

the putter of the camp generator

the modern hum of the tent’s furnace

and past the walls, the howl of a fresh storm

laden with stinging crystals of fresh ice

unrefracted in the North’s dark sanctum

here at the ceiling of the earth

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