The Iceberg - Anonymous

By Anonymous

So small and insignificant is the life of a passenger. They lay on their ships, and they raise their sails They can only hope for a gust of wind to carry them along the sea. Bending nature to their will, they can only hope it allows them to bend. Nature will not bend for me.

I am frozen eternally. Far too long Is the life of an iceberg. I am chained to the sea and yet, a cruel god Has chained my head to the clouds. I imagine a life elsewhere.

No passenger realizes how senseless they are They step, ants crushed beneath their shoes, Unknowing that they are the ants And I am the shoe. And I am merely the shoe.

The icy air brings along another ship today. I look down at it, and it looks up at me. We share the ocean for a few brief moments. There is a man on the boat. He stands out to me today A higher source tells me his name is Victor He flees from his own creation, says the source, but I do not care, nor do I need to care, for I am an iceberg.

The ship leaves, and I stay, and I’ll stay until there are no more ships to leave me.

I envy the humans and the inevitable end they will all face I do not get that privilege, and I will never understand what it is like To let these numbing waters take hold of my brain and limbs To finally sink me into the sea I lay in

For I have the power to sink others; Ice creeps over dead flesh in my wake. Waves, like a rope around my neck And yet I continue to breathe.

Photo credit: George Back (1796-1878). View in the Arctic Regions; a ship probably HMS Terror. British Museum. Dept. of Prints and Drawings, 1891-10-31-307, http://www.britishmuseum.org/. http://library.artstor.org.proxy-um.researchport.umd.edu/asset/AGERNSHEIMIG_10311308205. Included with submission.