POEM: Mystery of Ice

The funny thing
About ice
Is how
Without studying
Geology
Or thermo-dynamic physics
It stands with arms crossed
across its chest,
And how it defiantly
Makes geography;

How it can take river water
And
Gathered like sugar along
The banks,
Firmly direct
water which is not convinced
it even needs to become ice
anyway.

Then,
When warmer air
Skids over its slick skin,
How it squiggles
Like a garden hose,
Or
two children making a mess

again,
defining a geography
of youth
that is the mud of spring.



Dec 2004