GLACIOLOGY

My memories are locked deep in the ice,
I thought I would hold them there forever.
In the vast expanse
I am rooted in stillness.
Millions of years of our shared history, 
Compressed into layers,
A story told in a universal language,
Frozen in time until time undoes me.

A seasonal runoff my erode the details
But I can stand to let go of a few,
And there is beauty 
In what I have lost.
But the ice is melting.

My mind is diluted and my memories weaken.
There is a catastrophic transformation,
I will continue but never the same.
I am losing capacity to hold on,
And I am unwilling to drop my frozen stories
To be flushed away and lost forever.
I cannot grasp at these drifting vessels,
Only mourn what we will never know again.

Millions of years of atmospheric data is stored in air pockets compressed deep in the ice caps. We can dig and extract samples that reveal vast information. A storage system so perfect in its methods it will continue to collect and store with seemingly endless capacity. This is where the earth holds its memories. These bubbles of memory radiate blue light giving the ice caps a cotton candy colouring. As ice caps recede and the glaciers melt, our earth is losing its memories.