Gimme Shelter Double Feature: Whiteout on the Tasman Saddle & Hurricane at Home
We lumber through our own flood:
a glacier frozen meters thick,
the probe can’t reach the other end.
No phone here. We move like astronauts
with bouncy boots, attach ourselves to rope,
belay into Kelman Hut. The wind picks up;
it’s hard to breathe. The plains are snow stripped,
hard packed, slick. Ice cliffs splinter in the freeze,
shatter on rock and snow below:
a thousand blue bottles clatter adagio.
A change of plans. We bump around blinded by white.
Clouds obscure the sky, the sun. I keep an eye
on my feet, the tracks ahead, fear crevasses
covered by the thinnest sheets. Back home
a hurricane with a handgun holds up
tree after tree. They drop their leaves,
their short and long limbs. Plovers flee.
Windows shake, look liquid in their frames,
while wind hammers the panes. All roads south
closed down. Another car stalls—Which way is out?
The whole island, a capsized canoe.