Elder

We have gathered all the moss on the river banks

and packed it into the glacier’s blue wounds,

but still they bleed silt and wind. Her hands

are snow-skinned and we stroke their surface,

soothing her with soft appeals to stay, if only

for a little while longer. We have not heard

all her stories, or if we have, they are not memorized.

When the old ice retreats, they will become thin

and unreachable as high clouds on a warm day.

First published in Dawn Chorus, Salmon Poetry, Ireland.