Monday, May 10, 2010

Summer Ice; draft #1

For the sake of summer pleasure
ice once was harvested from waterways of the North:
The Great Lakes, Hudson Bay, and all across the land of the midnight sun.
Hulls were filled tight with the cold wonder
and longitudinally crossed the Atlantic
bound for ports along the St. Lawrence Seaway and the New England coast,
water choppy as unpredictable storms lashed wind,
raining death to the unweary.

Upon arrival, the ice was stacked in barns in shady places
always the coolest part of town.
It perspired and evaporated but slowly
and as a refrigerator open wide, emanated cold air,
a respite for the workers resting nearby,
this ice that stuck out like a sore thumb in the warm and humid airs.

But those were days when miracles became mechanical wonders
years before the most rudimentary of electronic inventions,
a century even before the digital age:
cool and cold now manufactured man made in abundance
like winter plucked from out the sky,
imbued in our favorite tv dinners and prepacked heaven's on earth.

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