People say “When hell freezes over”
To avoid naming their deeper desires,
Or to bolster an insecure heart
From having to admit you might be right,
Or when they mean they’ll never give up
No matter how petty and mean the fight.
Hell is supposed to be endless waste,
Burning with an unquenchable fire.
A word we reach for to name terror,
Machines that grind, evil beyond measure,
So shouldn’t we want it to cool down,
Overthrown by some great glacial power?
This phrase should be a prayer or a blessing,
Like a desert rendered cold by the night
Or the snow-cap on a volcano
That marks its sleep and waters fertile slopes.
Ice grants us beauty in darkest times,
A mercy to eyes straining through low light.
It shelters seeds, snails, salamanders
For a spring they know will surely return
After the scouring fury is spent
And the march of life advances anew.
Freezing for a while under some hells
Is the way we live through to rise again.
*Image: Cherokee Falls, Cloudland Canyon State Park, Georgia, January 2025. Original photograph.
Ooooo.....beautiful poem and very ruminative. Will reread this a few times this week.
all so beautiful- "Like a desert rendered cold by the night
Or the snow-cap on a volcano
That marks its sleep and waters fertile slopes.
Ice grants us beauty in darkest times,
A mercy to eyes straining through low light."