Geology

I ask my friend, a geologist, could the glacial ice really have been a mile thick. I hold my hand a mile over my head. He says, yes, without having to think for even a moment. Without having to make himself believe in this scripture. I hear the awe in his answer. Reverence. I nod, closing my eyes. We bow together at the altar of true grandeur. Our eyes scan the topographic map spread before us. He points there, there, there at drumlins. Glacial deposits particular to this region. He says, see how they are all inline. A wonder. Two nights from now, lying in bed, I will try to read Robert Bly’s poems from a Florida Key looking at the Jesuitical Florida waters. I will be distracted from his words by the wind blowing snow and ice hard against the house. My mind frozen in a mile of ice. The microscopic motion of it. The momentum. It’s impossible power to erase the world. I’ll listen hard. Straining to hear if the glacier is advancing. I’ll close the book and my eyes. I’ll try to sleep. Wondering what world I will find when I awake.