LIFE OF A GLACIER
place of birth
Glaciers born from perennial snow
Pressure formed, compacted to ice
Solidity failing under it's weight
Gently sustaining a steady flow
arêtes & cirques
An odd combination
A knife and a bowl
Rocks displaced, carved by snow
A valley and peak made long ago
Snow and ice gather above
Sliding down, dragging rock
A peak emerges, sharp as a knife
snow
Snowflake in the air
Forming a frozen blanket
Running from the sun
névé
Ice cristals melting slowly
Partially melted and compacted
Surviving through the summer
firn
Yet futher condensed
Freeze and melt, seasons go on
Closing all the pores
ice
A mass of ice, pure and dense
Bending and shifting under its mass
Blue and clear, all that from snow
frozen layers
Foliation
Layers of clear and bubbly ice
Trapping rocks, dust and rubble
Compressing slowly with little trouble
Each folia, an individual slice
Reminding of yearrings, as seen in trees
Layers of time, trapped in a freeze
Differing crystals in grain and size
Just like with wood, seasons defined
RIVERS OF ICE
steady flow
Under the weight of so much ice
The glacier moves really quite fast
Under that speed it breaks apart
Crevasses deep of quite some size
erosion
Ice carrying rocks and debris
Which is called collectively drift
Settled on or inside the mass
Falling down into a crevasse
A ridge of rocks where glaciers merge
A long morraine extending down
Glaciers now joined will not diverge
Transporting rocks down to the ground
moulin
An odd transformational space
Cracking,
Popping,
Like it’s alive
A flow,
A plunge,
Into the dark
Giant caverns apear below
Filled with water from above
Carried along in the stream
Between the frozen cracks we fall
Darkness rushes to cover all
Rushing,
Cracking
Tearing it down
Ice against rock,
Carving it,
Flowing out
We’re now near the end
MELTING GIANTS
terminus
The end of our mighty giant
Retreating back into the heights
Only lakes and rocks remain
braided streams
More sediment than it can carry
Streams branch and reunite
A twisting and turning riverbed
remnants
The glacier is gone
An odd landscape left behind
Erratic shapes drawn
A valley shaped like a 'U'
Dammed by moraines of oddly shaped rocks
Places where the ice cut through
Leaving nothing but a clue
I hope, now you know
That a glacier's complex
An old part of land
Cause of widespread effects
Shaping the land,
A source of clean water,
Inspiration in art,
effects so much broader
Don't know where to start?
Look down below
learn more
Glossary of Glacier Terminology Moulins Bleus, Explorers Journal Extreme Ice survey Vanishing Ice Glacier retreat, Nature Communications Encyclopedia: Glacier, National Geographic Glaciers in Art, Smithsonian Libary of Water, Icelandacknowledgments
Thank you to:
Sander Van de Vyver,
Sebastiaan Van Doninck,
Charlotte Dumortier,
Frederick De Bleser,
Arpais Dubois,
for guidance
and to the faculties
and staff of Sint-Lucas Antwerp