A journal of art + literature engaging with nature, culture, the environment & ecology

Glacial Fog

Sheikha A., Pakistan-United Arab Emirates

 

For and after Tighe O'Donoghue Ross 

The long night is coming, as is the long day on the saddle

of autumn; the short dusk rides a golden armour on smoke;

 

the sun melts from low-hung amber ceiling – 

broad as sound/taper as light – stalactites of heat

 

cracking at its base, their fall only to pierce

abdomens of gushing shores. Arching oceans 

 

recede against a winning war with frost – the poles 

of mammals – like the white husks on stars densed 

 

by prismatic fog, the pyramid of evolution – existence 

by evaluation, the chromosome of radiance enveloping 

 

the sky’s rims – multi-jewelled reigning string of gases – 

there is more colour as the stake dives deeper into 

 

the heart of the earth. And, this life, in the cobalt midst

of azure, the songs of stones on lips of birds, moss 

 

and grass perfuming soils, and this breathing of stems

where the flowers rest, the glistening of pollen from 

 

the sweat of bees, the regale of leaves on stooped 

branches, the labour of rain from wombs of clouds,

 

above and beneath the gradual advent of collapse. 

Listen close, nearby an aurora births from its shell. 


  

Sheikha A. is from Pakistan and United Arab Emirates. Her works appear in a variety of literary venues, both print and online, including several anthologies by different presses. Recent publications are Strange Horizons, Pedestal Magazine, Atlantean Publishing, Alban Lake Publishing, and elsewhere. Her poetry has been translated into Spanish, Greek, Arabic and Persian. She has also appeared in Epiphanies and Late Realizations of Love, an anthology that has been nominated for a Pulitzer. More about her can be found at sheikha82.wordpress.com.

Editor's Preface

Mother of Waters, River of Nine Dragons