Glaciers

The forest shivers under its blanket of snow. The clouds came bearing their gifts and have gone, leaving us to keep warm as best we can. I huddle close with my neighbors. We gather around each other, moving just far enough to keep the people from noticing. The animals burrow into our roots, making their homes in those caverns they find and warming us from within.

I look up at the sky. It is blue with the chill. It is crystal. It looks down on us; the sun shines on this forest and I live in the light that gives no heat.

I hear the moose in the distance. A single call breaks the silence of the snow, echoing off my bark and reverberating through the air. I listen as the moose wander across the land. They make their way to the glaciers and watch them flow. The lynx and the fox and the rabbit gather to watch the ice forming under the pressure of itself: the heaviest thing its own heart.

The ice moves onward despite the pressure. Thoughts lay trapped within the compacted water, locked away where no wandering soul can find them. The atoms have aligned so as to shut out all access. They have closed off their inner workings so the animals are left to watch. They watch the frozen river make its way down the valley, carving out the troughs they play in during the summer, lifting boulders and carrying them to a place they never belonged.