Letters to the Editor

Poem: Glacier Time

The bike’s tires roll closer and closer

to the glacial expanse,

sharp, blue teeth remnants

of an age gone by;

in defiance of a warming planet,

grinding out of the mountains,

standing defiantly in the valley

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it created.

I imagine a camera

positioned high overhead,

recording the glacier’s advances and retreats

over the millennia.

For a mercurially small instant

in the endless hours of footage

would be a flashof humanity;

a vague trace of the goings and comings of

bikers, skiers, snow machiners,

airplanes, helicopters, cars.

Moving silently, reverently through these blue bergs,

messengers from another time,

I feel like a time traveler

visiting an ancient world.

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There is no camera in the sky.

I am the lens.

I roll away

and the glacier recedes in my vision.

I wonder: if future generations forget

there were once glaciers,

will they remember us,

those who lived to see them?

— Frank E. Baker

Eagle River

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Frank Baker

Frank E. Baker is a freelance writer who lives in Eagle River.

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