Shadows (Frost VII)

More heavy snowfall has transformed the forest floor.

Instead of a mess of leaves and twigs and dirt, we get pristine branches in isolation.

Then their bigger brothers and sisters, the trees. The Romans thought a tree to be feminine while the barbarians in the north considered tree as masculine — what do we really know about them?

Capable of growth …

… and death, like us.

Wahr spricht, wer Schatten spricht.

Weggebeizt (Iceland V)

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.

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The glacier becomes a symbol of frozen time, and hence death.

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Here at Sólheimajökull, however, the abstract purity of Stifter’s glacier is contrasted by layers of ash, like many glaciers in Iceland.

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Thus the glacier seems to transport time, much like it does in the glacier poems of Paul Celan.

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