Creatures Of The Cold Poem by David Bedell

The world is more like a great basin
with the polar regions up around the rim.

Here the creatures of the cold huddle together,
up under the rafters of the sky
where it joins the edge.
Stretched between the rafters
is only a thin layer of tar paper,
and even this is torn in places,
allowing chilly black shreds of the void
to poke through like fingers.

Drafts blow dust and grit
across the gray cement floor.
Shivering, the animals crouch on the cement
and watch the wall of ice
which slowly creeps up the sides of the basin,
ever threatening them farther back into the nook.

At times, one turns to its neighbor and asks:
'Why do we not go down to the green regions
below the ice? '

But still they sit and await the glacier.

(1980)