Not So Chile these Days

These skies, like washboards, silvered,
Crenelated with butter rimmed drapes, soon
Softening, definition torn in the high jet winds.
Bracing, breezes off the floes, ice kissed,
Musty steam, released from an ancient cold.

High in the passes, the glaciers grind,
Their payload of ice and rock,
Caught in a morass of violent slow motion,
Crevasses slick with glistening turquoise
Sun-blessed, chosen to curry the gods of blue.

The rocks are dead teeth,
ragged and black in the shadow,
Volcanic dentures,
risen to grind the ice as it passes,
Exposed as their enamel melts.
Racing in skin numbing streams
Whitewater tumbles, cooling the throats
Of these global warmed seas.

No so Chile these days.
Patagonia growls wherever you gaze,
Its snowpacks lessened, its ice river tongues
Wagging, gossiping in crackled throats,
In tortured groans, whispering to the condors:
“Get away, flee while you can. Fly!”