Ice Core Section

This one is young. Thousands

not millions, each year a layer

fine as hair, clear blue to bluish-grey,

its seams thinned by storm and salt,

the scouring of the wind,

by drift and slip.

We sample meltwater and bubbled gas,

find in their silence the unrest of waves,

frazil ice spun in tides of rolling grey –

the hiss of it – the grey a vacuum

cast by lost light, by seabird call,

its muted echo.

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We cut to trails of plankton, ghosts of krill

and, deeper still, the shock of something

looming just below the surface –

its curve the turning of the Earth,

its slow eye a swoon of silhouettes

balanced against cloud.

We turn away, taste the smudge of ash,

pollen blown from vanished forests,

air that carried wing and song.

This one is young. The deepest ice,

its fractured histories and premonitions,

we keep for others not yet born.

Jane Lovell