The glaciers push everything around Poem by Daniel Falb

the glaciers push everything around, disturbing geologic

testimony, leaving abrasions in the bedrock.

the university helipad displays the signal of their pulse, in history,

into which i sink, dawson's moths on each of my eyes,

dawson's moths on my mouth.

in the folds spreading northeast around lake bonneville, since forever

two unversities, hostile to each other, have taken hold, whose configuration

shifts with the shifting ice sheet.

as chance would have it, sometimes one or the other had the upper hand. on one

of these days dawson marched up the south side of lone peak,

and as he passed a knoll he discovered a new drilling site

just above his own project, which

since nebraska's glacial period had brought important scientific use, and for him

a considerable income.



an ice core is a beautiful and strange artifact.

the word of the founding of one uni overlaps and the word of the founding of natural phenomena

are one, and the word of the opposite founding of another

university with the opposite founding of the natural phenomena

are one. invisible over large periods of time, the period of foundings appears

in the core as a layer that remains unfrozen,

enclosing reeking leaves and molded, trembling moths. the great mystery,

enclosed by perpetual ice,

is the extraction of the ice core. when he, approaching,

recognized the university tattoo on my neck, he gasped

and tried to button his shirt very casually while the pulse in his temples

beat heavily. the natural law behind all the

phenomena, which i devoted all my years to investigating,

is you.

Translation: Uljana Wolf