Once I dreamed
Ospreys soared where salmon teemed.
Frigid streams and waterfalls
Frosted walls where glaciers gleamed.
Darkness cowled
The moon whenever wolves howled
Until hunters fired a torch
That scorched the realms where night prowled.
Sunlight slew
Calves* of glaciers tinted blue,
Snowy owls, and arctic birds.
Hungry herds of caribou
Wandered far,
But the fervid morning star
Supped on ice that could not sate:
Gate of hell was left ajar.
Eagles screamed
As the broken ice unseamed.
Now the white of desert sands
Blankets lands where once I dreamed.
*Chunks of ice break off the end of a glacier and produce icebergs in a process known as "calving.”
First published as “Riven and Other Poetry in Traditional Bardic Forms by Elizabeth Spencer Spragins.” Society of Classical Poets, 22 Feb. 2017.
Riven (A Rannaigheacht Ghairid)
@elizabeth-spragins
11/09/17 05:30:49PM
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