Dare I watch? Dare I breathe in this place,
where Nature’s breath and hand
hath created frozen beauty
over hundreds, nay thousands, of years?
Glaciers appear as still rivers
imperceptible flows of time
dip down from mountains of rock,
those dark monoliths of eternity.
Snow compressed, solidified
centuries of generation after generation
braids of blue crystal rivulets
between boundaries of sky and sea.
We float, this ship of humans,
bodies in the midst of your debris
slabs of flesh among slabs of ice
decades of life dwarfed in age and size.
Bits of time shed from the mother lode,
we, the detritus of humanity
make our way through the field of ice
looking backward as our ship retreats.
We are changed forever by this timeless place
one small ship in a glacier glory land
a fracture
in the eons of time.
Top two photos from aboard our ship, very very close to Hubbard Glacier. We had to move through an ice field from its “calving” — to get close this close — and we were privileged to see it calve — drop a huge mantle of ice with a thunderous sound!!!
Mendenhall Glacier near Juneau.Notes below.
Almost to the toe of Laughton near Skagway.
Laughton’s ice shelf. Melting into glacial stream.
Us on hike back down. Notes below.
Mendenhall Glacier near Juneau. We hiked to a beach where we could look across a lake and see this magnificent site. Next are photos of our hike all the way up to the “toe” of the Laughton Glacier near Skagway. We are standing by a glacier runoff stream — the sound alone was wondrous. Others are of us standing on the toe — incredible that we made it this high — right next to the glacier….you’ll see the ice shelf, crack in the ice. Truly an amazing hike — exhausting but exhilarating! We climbed through woods, then over fields of rocks and boulders to get here. 11 miles round trip to Laughton. Alaska: trip of a lifetime!
lillian the home poet 