Teach me now the epistemology of melt
The inflexible rules of liquefaction
How broad white glaciers, bovine and calm
Drop their slippery calves into the sea
How ice, the crystalline, the blue, can rot
Pock, crack, fissure, flow
Send secret rivers twisting beneath the pack
How unbound land may rise
Fresh become brine
Currents chase their tails
Storms spin free
How the future, each minute
Stray further off the track
While I wake each morning
To the robin in the apple tree
Sings his changeless song
This poem first appeared in Cascadia Review (2013).
—
Pepper Trail retired following a long career with the US Fish and Wildlife Service, and is a Fellow of the American Ornithological Society. His poetry has appeared in Atlanta Review, Catamaran, Rattle and other publications, and has been nominated for Pushcart and Best of the Net Awards. His collection, Cascade-Siskiyou: Poems, was a finalist for the Oregon Book Award in Poetry. He lives in Ashland, Oregon.
