This Glaciated Heart

it is nothing less

than impossible

to withdraw from illusion

without long and

loving attention to

the magnitude

of the work done

not by volcanoes or earthquakes or

lightening

much less by torents or eroding rain

but that the humblest

stream of

compressed

closely-aligned

snow-flakes

grinding

tiny

tender

co-conspirators

this gargantuan

quantity

of unnoticed

mechanical work

wearing away

carting off

mountains

bit by piece

sculpted

pre-destination

icy particles of vapour

eventually

watering

these mellow beds of rocksoil

marshline sedge nurseries

filtering food

for

all earth’s waiting chldren