GREENLAND, LEAVING BREDEFJORDUR, 9:22 P.M.
a prose poem
by Judith Lindbergh
We climbed to the mouth of the glacier this evening above a pensive sea, rippling and glowing. How did we dare to touch this island's heart, this great ice-bear asleep through ages - through the footsteps of booming beasts and petty men? Only a lolling granite tongue jutted out beneath the hulk of ice, and deep within, a core of blue like a glossy marrow. As we drew closer, the ice-bear breathed above our tiny rubber rafts and our bright, beaming, hopeful life-jackets.
First we rounded its base, slow and at a distance, the sound of our outboard motor like the squeak of a wary vole. Above our heads, great torrents cut across the stone and rose in spitting mists before falling from the icy gullet into the sea.
At last, we turned from the deep rock gashes and the sound of spray and faced the rock - an accommodating climb, shallow stairs, or teeth, to be rounded up and clambered over. Beneath our feet, within the crevices, brilliant pebbles, red as clay, green as jade, some white and gray as the colors of gnawed, neglected bones; and flowers, arctic beauties, showy colonists who looked without fear at the dozing beast and set their roots in the gray, fine silt and bore with proud defiance their life-bound stance.
And then the ice: the broad, white back, shadowed in earth and bits of stone, shone in the foggy light of a sun just breaking. At its feet, offerings: piles of stones left for the gods, or God, or perhaps for the great ice-bear himself for when he wakes again and stretches this way and longs for food. Gifts left by us or others. Silent wishes for a peaceful sleep.
Our ship looked so small from there, and our few friends spread about, tiny fleas on the ice-bear's fur. We stroked him gently, crawled about. He did not hear us, or perhaps only in his dream.
And when we left, it was in amazement and disconcerting joy touched with awe. Though we laughed and snapped photographs and sucked on ice just fished out from the sea, we knew we had seen, and touched at last, the great ice-bear.
Copyright © 1995 by Judith Lindbergh
First published in New Thought Journal. Spring 1996. |
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