Cathedrals of Ice
The Atlantic—immense, unbroken, pale—
A vision conjured by the poet’s hand,
Revealing ice, the wind, the northern gale,
That makes the heart and senses understand.
This is the task: to show the frozen land,
Where nature’s sternest face is cold and bare.
The polar fields, the icebergs tall and grand,
Crash loud as mountains meeting in the air—
A groan of ancient power, vast despair.
The ice climbs high in jagged ribs and spires,
A drifting mass of frozen, sculpted stone.
Each berg a temple shaped by winter’s fires,
A tower lost, a monument alone.
The sailors name them, seeing from the zone
Their forms like cathedrals on the sea;
St. Paul’s itself, in icy outline shown,
Drifts past in ghostly majesty—
A vision cold, where death and beauty both agree.
WoPoLi 
Leave a comment