Blue, Dissolving

Blue, Dissolving

There was a pale moon that night,
As creamy silk as newborn fur on
a baby polar bear left motherless
to mewl alone on a vast Arctic ice
cap, barely strength left to lift, heft,
struggle, snap weak paw
at the sturgeon rippling in upper
long range streaming shoals past
the giant ice floes breaking from
melting ice shelves, built to last--

A thousand years to break, or so it
seems to mama polar finding her
wobbling foothold, fueling her
mournful growl that long winter night
Of measureless darkness, when glacial ice
Turns to water, dissolves, the lining of
Earths joints deep liquid indigo circling
The world’s polar points, unable to hold
their ground; For years they left themselves
to science and science gave them back to
us in a blue, dissolving

Author: Rekha Valliappan

Photo: Hans-Jurgen Mager on Unsplash