from a ten thousand year old
keep, an ice pack weeps as
steadily its waters seep from
out the face of the retreating
glacier and creep downhill
in a slurry stream as the ice
withdraws inexorably
and a waterfall leaps down
the mountain, plunges steep
slopes, splashes into the deep
filling the very fjord its
ancestor had carved
while ocean-going craft
ply the deep slash that was
once a vast mass of migrating
snowpack, but now small farms
cling precariously to its walls,
homes of the lonely fishermen
braving its wintry squalls
first published in The Oak
©2015 Bonnie Manion