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.