White Light Dawns

Mid-August, the grass is all but yellow.
Small forbs and sedges retain some green.
The rushes wilt.
Spruces - thought to be eternally forest green -
dim -
a subtle response to
the ice-sky.

No one knows where the ice-lords came from. Or
even if there are ice-lords, but now
instead of sky there’s a dome of white.
I say dome, but it’s square - rectangular to be exact.

By definition a globe is round, but
ours is now encased in sharp lines of an eternal
rectangular cube.
What is the word again?
Not cube, cone, cylinder, or sphere. The fifth one,
It had something to do with light
refraction.

It isn’t true what they say, that you’ll never use geometry in real life.

Not that knowing the correct shape would change the
steady thrum of dread, which
reeks a silent havoc
on my mental health.

White Light Dawns

A prism - a rectangular prism.
That’s the word. See no change, and I only had to ask
three people.
Thankfully, there are still some of us here.

The world appears translucent, no
that’s the wrong word,
tranquil.

The translucent sky is replaced with 
solid ice.

It is like living in a glacial cave, but
the world still looks the same.
Maybe a little wilted.

I miss the wind. There are no
waves on the lake.
The sun is always white and only comes for the west.

With only a few hours of ice-light,
we
live our lives in pale darkness, with the ice-sky palpably near.

Each ice-rise, the days get a bit cooler. But this is nothing compared to what happens after
ice-set.

The last word from the tropics was
there were no trees left.
The spruce could likely last a
year or two of eternal winter,
but what about the lack of light.

White Light Dawns

We dust off our winter clothes and send half south.
Each of us takes vitamin D
and prays for
a blue sky or
at least
a breath of breeze.