In The Bleb of Heaney's Icicle
Compose in darkness
Expect aurora borealis
In the long foray but no cascade of light.
Keep your eye clear as the bleb of the icicle.
 
---Seamus Heaney I awoke on a flood plain,
its impossible darkness a parabolic whirl of North,
time passing on the grey clock of cold,
cycling, tick-tocking its peculiar rhyme of back and forth,
where the blue shark's fin breaks the icy stream and deep-running
salmon course down mountain canyons to the thundering sea.
 
A balloon of my breath bursts forth,
captive in time its cloud momentarily iridescent,
glimmering in the light of distant stars,
even as conqueror cold comes
circling life across endless ice
in this shimmering kingdom of North.

A unique geometry of snow falls patiently,
mile on mile, a perfect crystalline lattice of my soul,
merciful blanket from the deep wrapping around me,
until at last I sleep.