ICEBERG

You loom ahead, massive, a nameless monster
through dawn’s thickened mist. Slick and pure you
                       
                    rise and rise and rise,


our frightened eyes cannot take you in, cannot surmise
your meanings, your reasons for being, completely.


Like an elephant tusk, you pierce the water line, surprise the universe.
This serrated white knife tip slices horizon’s gleaming zinc in two.


You’re an angel of searing kindness clad in ivoried robe,
open arms beckon us homewards somewhere between
blue air and the brace of water’s chill.


Perhaps you’ve come to help us cope with our dulled vision,
our paltry fears on this ship of hoary fools.  All that
in our studied numbing we cannot feel, nor simply
become, nor love.


Through chattering teeth I shout: are you lonely here
in this wild immensity, this frigid sea of salt? 
Have you wandered far from your ice-bound herd,
do you need us to help you find your meandering
scattered mates, to help unfreeze your hope?


To release this icy bitterness silently encased,
towards those like us who fear and hate your
sudden god-like presence?


Iceberg, you are ominous beyond
all words.


In light of our well-worn habits,
these that cloak and twist our sensing,
as we face your awe-full whiteness,
I now declare---


towards what lies beneath under your open throat
(that roars louder than a hunter’s lust down where your guts abide)


another poem, much braver than this,
must venture out, dive way beyond our terror to taste your animal depths, 
yes, to relinquish our ship-bound illusions of safety,


an all- too-human error, and truly begin to glean what’s unknown
yet not lost in these still waters, as you, scintilla of the sea, 
                                               
                                rise and rise and rise,


so soon one day before you melt and waste away from our greed  our hubris,
you may be felt be seen.