Cold

Barren and lifeless and white
The glacier creaks and it groans
Beneath us, the hot path of flight
Awakens the dead creatures’ bones
As we turn to make just one last pass
Of our search in the cold deathly light
Something chillingly taps on the glass
A creature of tremor and fright
The fingers are icy, and crack
As the rime in their crevices breaks
With fingernails horny and black
That pick at the ship till she shakes
As we pull it away from the ice
The hand drips and melts and corrodes
If the power in the ship won’t suffice
We too will be perished and cold
But we’re free and we head for the sky
Where it’s clean and the atmosphere clear
That will teach us to not overfly
Hell. At this time of the year

©️jj