The whole class was asked to write poetry as a reflection on their experience with and on glaciers. Here are the results!
Glaciers are fast in recession
But still they make an impression
For many they are a beautiful sight
Others think they are alright
But for Jeff they are his obsession
-Cat Lim
Glacier how you glisten
From sunlight shining so gold
If only we would listen
To the secrets that you hold
Glacier in your journey
You may travel far
However it is a long way
To find out who you are
Your time exceeds ours
With this it is hard to rhyme
Yet you can not dismiss my effort
To discuss geological time
Glacier how you journey
Through mountains high and low
Bringing moments from the past
That teach us where stories go
I have stood where I can see your toe
And I wonder if you have a head
You must because what else could explain
Your efficiency as a watershed
Your power is relentless
And your vastness incompatible
How could you ever be replaced
With something as pathetic as rubble
Will we find the answers
In all we say and do
Will we find the answers in you
All thugs start from somewhere
That much you already know
You cannot change what is over
But only where you go
-Ester Archer
Glacier oh glacier I love you, you’re great
If only you weren’t receding at such an alarming rate
Glacier oh glacier a progressive being your not
Climate instrument of the past, teaching us a lot
Oh how useful your resources are
If only we would walk instead of driving our car
Glacier oh glacier you are one in a mil
Will any of us miss you? I think most of us will
Your equilibrium line, changing it is
We discussed this at length during Jeff’s last quiz
Oh how I’ll miss you whenever you go
The beauty in your sublime and your alpine snow
-Ester Archer
A distant glacier,
A vast, expansive sea of ice
A white blanket on the mountains
Being on a glacier,
Surrounded by large cracks and deep crevasses,
Listening to the sound of glacial melt water running across ice
The future of glaciers
Receding at an alarming rate
Leaving uncertain implications on our future.
-Anonymous
Beauty and terror
Throughout history perceived
Are the large glaciers
Northern Canada
Big crevasses are hoped for
We love a survey
Sliding like raclette
Melting like mint ice cream, yo
Glaciers are a meal
-Megan Zamow
Bite of the crampon
Students strung together
Assessing risk
Thousands of snowflakes compressing
Under pressure creating ice
Bubbles holding stories of the past
-Anonymous
it’s a feeling of kinship;
a gentle recollection, blue-hued like nostalgia.
it’s an aquamarine tranquility, whispering as the kiss of wind,
as some ghost.
it’s a ghost of infinite potential
potential energy grinding through EARTH:
our bones.
its a thunderclap ABOVE
above open ocean.
it’s an eternal confluence towards SELF
self awareness fragmenting in seracs crushing downwards.
downwards motion that’s impossible TO UNDERSTAND
to understand is to know death, loss.
loss pristine like snow’s mourning evanescence.
she sighs and
it feels like recession
-Kati Williams
cyclic
circuitous
time spirals downwards like
ice that swallows rivers and
bleeds as stone
she’s human in form, the water
laid bare in worship of the sun.
sun she swallows whole like
rivers;
atoms that will one day make stars
cyclic
circuitous
she carries many things,
the bones of sky that
rain down like diving birds:
memories of flight
she’s human in form, searching
gossamer crystals hanging on reflection.
she never looks back to the sky,
her lover.
genesis of perfect recollection
cyclic
circuitous
she knows her death is coming;
she tumbles into abyss,
taking flight far from sheer faces
disappearing like rivers swallowed whole,
like meteors kissing horizon.
-Kati Williams
Every second of every day I move forward with the flow of what is to come next.
I have carried a lot over time,
but as time had gone on I must lighten the weight.
My age brings wear and tear with cracks and scratches,
but I remain strong.
I am given new strength with every cold night and winter blanket.
However, sadly I am coming to the end of my life and with that becomes less and less of me.
I know that with this age I am helping others as they are trying to help me.
Unfortunately it is too late.
But give it time because I believe that one day I will return.
-Jacob Koshiol
I awake with the cyclical rise of the sun,
out from underneath my snowy cold blanket.
I drink in its energy to warm myself and my joints creak
but are slowly lubricated by the flow of my melting blanket.
I look to the mountains and ridges as reminders of previous’ days hard work.
My scars and cuts remind me of the bending and turning that my days consist of.
As the sun sits most high,
I work the hardest,
sending my hard earned sweated down through the gorge into the valley.
As night approaches,
my snowy cold blanket prepares to cool me off for a cool nights rest.
I am a day in the life of a glacier.
-Jack Walter