Sonnet #117

The painting of the glaciers and icebergs,

impressive in their size, by Frederick Church

Who burned coal to the arctic, saw the watery lurch

of all the frozen, filthy castles, dramaturge

naturalists will exclaim the glory in prose

to preserve what we lost when soon this painting

will recall a time when glaciers hanging

above the slopes of Alaska smothered all roads

A mystery to the young, all that accumulated ice;

The species that lived there in a frozen desert,

The people that died to find the cap of all nights.

Wilderness, remember how to live in this part

When the ghosts of polar bears swim and fight

among drowned castles, without stories, without art