I cannot think of a better description of glaciers than in Adalbert Stifter’s novella Bergkristall, where two young children, on their way home to their alpine village, get lost in a storm on a glacier.
The glacier becomes a symbol of frozen time, and hence death.
Here at Sólheimajökull, however, the abstract purity of Stifter’s glacier is contrasted by layers of ash, like many glaciers in Iceland.
Thus the glacier seems to transport time, much like it does in the glacier poems of Paul Celan.
The Inner Frame 