VOYAGE OF THE ICEBERG
Australian Antarctic Territory, midsummer
Now evening’s wearing midday’s face.
Our floating time capsule, sparkling and popping,
is shoving through the flimsy sea ice.
I now feel Gondwanan voices
simmering beneath my feet;
every rising bubble of air
that gouges our tall ship’s sides
carries off a puff of history.
The penguins dive one by one in the water,
hunting the fish that hunt the krill
that hunt the microbes around the iceberg.
This chain of life trails on behind
our slowly shrinking country
that drifts away from treaties
and out of reach of governments
towards a dissolving future.
Published in Tir na nOg magazine
S.C. Flynn 