CRO-MAGNON IN THE INTERGLACIAL


Old New England Saying: The glaciers aren't gone; they just went back for more rocks.


The world is turning to water and warmth;
The ice cliffs which came from as far as the memory went
Now soften, retreat, drip and trickle, collapse with sullen roars;
The sun has seized the day, grown strong and cruel to the ice,
And the sun's green things leap into the breach in surges,
Fighting their own fights, grass against brush, trees marching in,
And even at night the world sleeps to the rustle and whisper
Of life's great rebellion as it joins the sun against the ice.

And here at the beginning of a new age of not-winter
Cain dreams. And Abel is nervous as Cain dreams.

Cain stares into the little fire of sticks and bones And dreams it large, dreams it myriad, Fires so large and so many they consume the night, Turn night to day and the season to not-winter forever. Cain stares at the forest marching in against the ice And dreams it changed, dreams it rearranged In stickbuilt lattices mounting to the sky to help Turn night to day and the season to not-winter forever. Cain stares at the shiny glob melting from rock in fire And dreams it changed, dreams it shaped into Fire forged tools and devices against the ice to Turn night to day and the season to not-winter forever.

Cain dreams, and Abel is nervous as Cain dreams
Not to mention a little pissed
Since Cain is slacking even more than usual.
But when he asks, “What's wrong, brother,”
Cain looks at him like he'd never seen him before.

Then says, “I'm thinking,” as if that excused it all.

Abel knows better than to press, and goes about doing
What has to be done whether fairly shared or not.
But at night at the fire, with the night pressing in,
Watching Cain wander off in his lostness of thought,
Asks again: “Thinking what?” Cain snaps back to there,
Angry at the interruption — then, night all around, softens.

“I'm dreaming,” he says, “of paradise on earth.”
Abel stares for a moment, then looks down at the fire.

“I'm imagining a world that works for us.”
Not knowing what to say, Abel stares into the fire.

“I see ways to so warm the world that the ice will never return.”
Abel understands that, looks up and smiles.

But Cain, staring into the fire, doesn't see the smile.
As he doesn't see the receding ice contract to a kernel
Of coldness that comes to lodge in his heart
As he lives out his dream of paradise, cold between ice and ice.

— George Sibley, © 2005