These poems are from a series inspired by reading Atlas Obscura stories while listening to a music genre randomly selected from my list. The poems were written immediately after reading, still while listening to the randomly chosen music. Please share and/ or click the “clap” button at the bottom if you enjoyed this.

The Trek to Bid Farewell to an Icelandic Glacier
reggae

Dear Future: At some time, you will not be covered in so much ice that it will deform you. I think we want to believe that states of matter always shift. For now scientists describe glaciers with human words like “tongues,” and though a dead glacier looks the same as a living one, we know it’s different. We don’t see Pluto much but do we see it differently if it’s no longer a planet? In school we learned about dinosaurs that turned out not to have been real. Now we’re not sure if dinosaurs were ever more than an induction into the idea that there was a history, and even history can change. Yeah, I took that with me and tried to fight for truth. I wanted us to hear the truth about nuclear testing and Tibet. At rallies we sang “Get, up, stand up, for your rights!” Well, we have freedom of expression. The freedom to put up a plaque where a glacier used to be.

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