I'm standing still
  on a point of land
  that forces the river to go around it.
I'm feeling the weight
  of the glaciers calving on the far shore
  but not really calving,
  perpetually imminently calving...threateningly standing still,
  attached to the main glacier by...what?
Do they need each other
like capillary action?
like a 5-year-old girl holding onto her father
  spinning her around just off the summer playground bark mulch?
like the last longing hug
  in the Tsawwassen ferry terminal
  before her sprint to Berth Five?

Behind me, up the point, at the base of the cliff, in the boulders,
  is the hot spring
  staring across the valley
  carved by THAT glacier's ancestors.
And in the hot spring
  where I return to dip
  are the controls for the calving.

The bergs across the way are compelled to look,
  constantly, day and night,
to see if the steam in the spring is increasing.
That's a cue: watch for it.
The more I glide my arms over the surface, the more steam rises. I smirk.

The bergs across the way are compelled to look,
  constantly, day and night,
to see if the loose small rocks above the spring
  lose their purchase and fall in from the expanding/contracting heat/cold
  of living near the live spring.
I caused the last rock to spill in
  when I tossed my towel up there just minutes ago.
Grin. Wet towel, small price to pay.

The bergs across the way are compelled to look,
  constantly, day and night,
to see the wisps of steam that die quickly
  once each snowflake dies on the surface of the spring.
The larger the flakes, I notice, the more spherical the puff of steam,
  that must count for something.

Do you want me
  to shovel all the snow nearby
  into a large pile at the side
  then shove it in?

Do you want me
  to stand up, leap out, run up the cliffs
  push all the loose small, and big, rocks into the pool?

Do you want me
  to dig a well a mile deep, light a fire down there
  to further stoke the thermal furnace
  and watch the spring approach boil
  to create a fog to rise, glide down the point, cross the river
  and slide up your side, encompassing your leading edge,
  and wrap around the crest of you, berg,
just like the man's hand reaches around the back of the woman's neck,
  slides up the back of her head to cup her hair in his palm
  as his fingertips glide up and down her scalp?

Or is the arctic blue sky, as bright now as it's going to get,
  in charge of it all.
Silently lording over us all its
pre-eminence
  among the boulders and stones,
  glacier and bergs,
  spring and point and river?

And am I to just stand still,
  on the point,
  quietly,
  not even humming,
just waiting...
waiting and standing...
waiting and...
waiting.

Copyright 2002, Stephen Buckley
08.07.02, 930-1015pm