Beneath The Ice

Tumult, by God.

I saw a burning angel,

vogueing in the corn.

Somewhere’s the key that fits.

Something vague creaks and whispers

in the night beneath the ice under which

also a river shambles still. I wait for the day

when these murmurs come to stay.

The whole family was crazy as shithouse rats.

They said this one was somehow blessed,

this one was to be spared. Half of what

the world speaks cannot be verified.

It could be more than that.

How would I possibly know?

Something that did not die with the others

creeps in those empty places out back.

We have long been told there are old bones

huddled in the earth beneath the trees.

I can hear them shivering beyond the gauze of

winter crouched on the yard, just within

the silence that captures and carries

whatever sound dares trespass.

I can hear the sigh of ice

settling on the river.

The others are there, beneath

the ice, treading like

fish in inflated finery.

Impatient, and growing more

impatient by the day.

They are waiting.

When his boat was snapped loose

from its mooring, under

the screaking of gulls,

he tried at first to wave

to his dear ones on the shore,

but in the rolling fog

they had already lost their faces.

Too tired to even choose

between jumping and calling,

somehow he felt absolved and free

of his burdens, those mottoes

stamped on his name-tag:

conscience, ambition, and all

that caring.

He was content to lie down

with the family ghosts

in the slop of his cradle,

buffeted by the storm,

endlessly drifting.

Peace! Peace!

To be rocked by the infinite!

As if it didn’t matter

which way was home;

as if he didn’t know

he loved the earth so much

he wanted to stay forever.

—Stanley Kunitz, “The Long Boat”