Will lilies grow when the glaciers recede?
Why bother to even ponder such a dream?
For as of now how the mountains stand
The ice walls march on fields of man.
 
Acre by acre of arable land is consumed
By the hungry beasts of frozen doom.
Our strength and will is sapped and dry.
Paralyzed by fear may be how we die.
 
When there’s scarcely anything left to defend
Can man be moved or is his fire pretend?
Paintings of flame won’t melt those crystal stones.
True passion is required to defend our homes.
 
If battle can be waged all we should hope to gain
Is little else more than the wisdom of pain.
To forsake our borders in prosperous times,
Is to our unborn kin the most blasphemous crime.
 
Barriers have been trampled and our farms lie in duress.
These gluttonous colossi try and consume our entire harvest.
Forget about beating them back up into the hills.
There is only time left to salvage any remaining spoils.
 
Godspeed! There’s not a moment to waste!
Soon these nightmarish ice barons will all confiscate
Our prairies and parishes. Nothing more will be left.
These insatiable demons yield to no one’s behest.
 
Once we’re free from their dreaded encroachment
May we reconstitute our civilization and reflect on past judgements.
What possessed us to live so close to such perils?
Did anyone second guess any of the hazardous potentials?
 
Was the meltwater to crisp for our ancestors to resist?
Did any of them discover that its source was on a shift?
Downward they encroach gaining pace every day.
Years ago they crawled, but today they make haste.
 
Even now as we pack up our lives to evacuate
Some make excuse for our elders who knew and never exclaimed.
And other old ones dare say they expected to pass away
Long before the snow slides could threaten to make us prey.
 
What foolishness some of us witness them to believe.
But can we make any excuse for ourselves as we too are bereaved.
Forget about observing our gardens bloom in the spring ever again.
Will we at the least survive enough to raise our own children?
 

20 April 2019