The Ice Cart

I ski the slopes in winter’s chill,
The July snow is blinding bright.
I sweep and swerve at will.
I ski the slopes in winter’s chill,
The knife-edged wind is sharp and shrill,
Beneath the fading evening light.
I ski the slopes in winter’s chill,
The July snow’s no longer bright. 

The Inspiration

The Ice-Cart

 Perched on my city office-stool,
 I watched with envy, while a cool
 And lucky carter handled ice. . . .
 And I was wandering in a trice,
 Far from the grey and grimy heat
 Of that intolerable street,
 O'er a sapphire berg and emerald floe,
 Beneath the still, cold ruby glow
 Of everlasting Polar night,
 Bewildered by the queer half-light,
 Until I stumbled, unawares,
 Upon a creek where big white bears
 Plunged headlong down with flourished heels
 And floundered after shining seals
 Through shivering seas of blinding blue.
 And as I watched them, ere I knew,
 I'd stripped, and I was swimming too,
 Among the seal-pack, young and hale,
 And thrusting on with threshing tail,
 With twist and twirl and sudden leap
 Through crackling ice and salty deep --
 Diving and doubling with my kind,
 Until, at last, we left behind
 Those big, white, blundering bulks of death,
 And lay, at length, with panting breath
 Upon a far untravelled floe,
 Beneath a gentle drift of snow --
 Snow drifting gently, fine and white,
 Out of the endless Polar night,
 Falling and falling evermore
 Upon that far untravelled shore,
 Till I was buried fathoms deep
 Beneath the cold white drifting sleep --
 Sleep drifting deep,
 Deep drifting sleep. . . .
The carter cracked a sudden whip:
I clutched my stool with startled grip.
Awakening to the grimy heat
Of that intolerable street.

W. W. Gibson

This “summer triolet” W3#221 via Selma and The Skeptics’s Kaddish leads me to winter down under. If W.W. Gibson can transport a sweltering City clerk to the polar regions to swim with polar bears — then I can go skiing in the Australian Alps in July.