Riven (A Rannaigheacht Ghairid)

Once I dreamed
Ospreys soared where salmon teemed.
Frigid streams and waterfalls
Frosted walls where glaciers gleamed.

Darkness cowled
The moon whenever wolves howled
Until hunters fired a torch
That scorched the realms where night prowled.

Sunlight slew
Calves* of glaciers tinted blue,
Snowy owls, and arctic birds.
Hungry herds of caribou

Wandered far,
But the fervid morning star
Supped on ice that could not sate:
Gate of hell was left ajar.

Eagles screamed
As the broken ice unseamed.
Now the white of desert sands
Blankets lands where once I dreamed.

~Glacier Bay, Alaska

*Chunks of ice break off the end of a glacier and produce icebergs in a process known as “calving.”

First published as “Riven and Other Poetry in Traditional Bardic Forms by Elizabeth Spencer Spragins.”  Society of Classical Poets, 22 Feb. 2017.  Edited by Evan Mantyk and Connie Phillips.  Mount Hope, New York.