The Ancient River From a ridge, looking to a valley below— one hazeled and shadowed by the sunrise, with willows bending in the wind’s soft blow—
is an old river with a hooked oxbow. Over it, the sun scumbles the cold skies with her honeyed rays and pale, warming glow—
snuffing the stars, shortening the shadows, eliciting a wood thrush’s sweet cries, and thawing grass in the frosty hollow.
Beyond the horizon the river goes. While ever-winding and wild its way lies: now eddying in banks of ice and snow;
now coursing across a taiga’s meadows; now sharpening a granite cliff’s sheer rise; now beating rapids with its ceaseless blows.
Gone now are night and its fine indigo. The gold sun illuminates the vale’s skies, lighting the ancient river as it flows into a future that nobody knows.
Born in a cosmic, ancient time unknown— Neither with a beginning nor with end, Roving the globe with no destination, Scaled from gales to zephyrs—exists the wind.
Never truly stilled. Wind wafts through tall grass, Strokes a woodpecker’s pileated back, Eddies, whirls like an Istanbul dervish, Then rushes to autumn’s gold tamarack.
Along a purling stream it courses. Unconquerable, the wind keeps her head, Dashing over the solemn pine forest, Toward the boreal Arctic’s stone swept shore.
Then out! Out over the cold raging sea, Of black waves, fractured pack ice, and white spume— Out amid lightning’s ribbonlike white wires, Where auroras blaze in electric bloom.
On capricious currents come chance and change. Historic, progressive, shaping wild rain— On wind ride voyagers, eagles, and hopes: Hopes to be fulfilled, hopes that are in vain.
Robins perch in the Teton’s forest On snow-laden boughs of pine trees. The birds sing sweetly in chorus While waiting for the north spring breeze.
Their eyes gleam like obsidian. Their gaze is bright and querying. With brisk, swift looks the birds peer in– Past the pines on which they’re tarrying,
Over the saxifrage and vetch– To the sky, darkening at dusk. In the cold low sun, shadows stretch: Full day becomes a hollow husk.
The robins fly to a copse of spruce, Watching for the barred owl and crow. Here the birds settle in to roost Above wild raspberries and snow.
On oak branches hang frosted leaves– Brittle, icy, and walnut brown– Among stones, wolves, owls, swans, and geese, Where flakes of snow fall thickly down. Fragrant pines and gnarled cedars stand In a gorge by the frozen stream Where fog lies in a milky band, And the sun makes the clear ice gleam.
Through this cold, all solitary, Walks a man most melancholy. All he owns is all he carries: His bread, water, hopes, and follies. He recalls a girl from his past. He dreads the long, poor road ahead For darkness here is most unkind. He has no place to lay his head.
He treks across the snowy plains Past the scrub oak, the pines, and streams, His mind is hard, his body pained. His clothing is worn at the seams. The moon rises, new and dark. Stars are woven like fishing nets. The land lies daunting, grim, and stark.
Jack Frost, the personification of winter, speeds forth in an icicle train to the north pole to stop spring from coming. To stop spring, Frost must keep winter’s candle lit.
Frederick Edwin Church – Aurora Borealis, 1865
Through the snowy passes
Hurtles an old and hoary train.
It dashes past crevasses
Along the cold moraines.
Its transit is annuary—
Only once in ice and snow—
Only deep in January
Is the Icicle Train prepared to go.
And how extraordinary
This Icicle Train is to see
It seems imaginary
As it curves ’round glaciers and the scree.
Its locomotive is wrought of iron,
Embellished with curls and coils
With raveled figurines of wire on
Its smokestack, which blows and boils.
Its cars are made of stained glass
Each are as vitreous as the sea
The glass is mullioned in fine brass
With designs of spruce and cedar trees.
The conductor is an old man
Jack Frost is his true name
For longer than mankind’s lifespan
He has steered this venerable train.
He wears a jester’s cap of black and white
With five points that have five bells
And he wears a cloak that’s black as night
With gloves and shoes as white as shells.
He drives the train into the north
Where the bears and walrus live
Into dark lands where few rove forth,
Where the cold does not forgive.
What does the conductor seek there?
It’s a secret you should know.
He is searching with intent care
For a faint and feeble glow.
He seeks the flame of winter
Which gutters night by night,
The flame lies furthest hinter
Beneath dancing aurora light.
The flame of winter shudders
With each approaching spring
And when at last it gutters
The earth begins to green.
But Frost wants winter eternal—
A world of snow and ice—
So he strives to cease the vernal
Tidings by this particular device.
For if he can keep that cold flame
Burning in the north
Then he will meet his own aim
And spring shall not come forth.
So the Icicle Train speeds onwards
Through the snow and ice and frost
To thwart the coming season
And to render summer lost.
Frost stokes the boiler’s fire
He throws in wood and coal
So the flames in it lick higher
As he steams on toward his goal.
But the winter’s flame has dwindled so far
Even as he comes
The fire flickers beneath a bell jar
As the locomotive hums.
Jack Frost speeds across a prairie
Of flat ice and winter’s snow
Across dazzling ice that’s glary
Toward the paltry distant glow.
Now he’s very near it
And Frost will fan its flame
But the candle is but half-lit,
Or half-dead to say the same.
And then the fire does choke
And a tragedy strikes for him
The fire becomes a feathered smoke
The flame dies within the glim.
And although no word is spoken
There comes a thundering crack of ice
As winter’s spell is broken
And spring is taken from its glacial vise.
The Icicle Train must go back
For another long, green year
And Jack Frost with his coat black
Must take his bow and disappear.
But this is not forever—
Every year he tries his worth—
And in eras when Frost was quick and clever
We’ve had a snowball earth.
But this year he’s been frustrated
And the north sounds with his rage
For Frost will never be placated
Till we live in a perpetual ice age.
David Murphy 