I. OMEN
The pale runs down the inner sky,
a fading where mute colours dye
the frost-lines as they knotting lie,
‘cross stones enjoining crystal sighs.
Slow as ice.
Still it comes.
The ridges drift beneath the strain,
old strata brace against the planes
of all-consuming stark domains.
The aeon’s pulse in chill refrain.
II. FIRST PRESSURE
The outcrops feel a weight unsaid
a downward pull along the bed
where buried strata turn instead
toward the gathering of dread.
Slow as ice.
Still it comes.
Fine sediments begin to lean,
their loosened grains no longer keen
to drift or lift or hold their tone,
settling into monochrome
III. ENCROACHMENT
Across the valleys, in light denied
the pallor thickens into stride,
a patient, depth-remembered tide.
A record cut beneath the skies
Slow as ice.
Still it comes.
Contours freeze to an iron seam,
the hills relinquish what they dream
and rivers slow by ice-hand willed,
until their running thoughts are stilled
IV. OVERRUN
Now pressure forms its leading prow
a slow insistence teaching how
the land must come to disallow,
to blur its shape, to disavow.
Slow as ice.
Still it comes.
The deeper stones begin to slip,
batholiths lose their rooted grip
and rest itself is pared away
as night collapses into day
V. BURIAL
Then nothing knows what once it knew
the ice remakes the earth’s review
until the brittle depths accrue
a single yet relentless hue
Slow as ice.
Still it comes.
Old histories fold underground,
compressed into a muted sound
that travels nowhere, sealed in shale,
a chronicle too cold to hail
VI. TERMINAL STILLNESS
No further margin left to claim,
no line to press, no shape to tame,
the frozen plain without a name
withdraws from movement, need, or aim
As ice.
Here it stays.
Thorn and Benediction 