Spirit birds
ghostly around icebergs
spinning shards of compacted snow
paperpale over ink dark waters.
With nasal sonars pinging
Snowy petrels make an iceberg almost cosy.
Mirrors of departed light
hunt by smell
the long season
of the southern night.
White against white becomes invisible
perched on snow Snowys are not seen.
Now we spot them
now we don't,
spirit birds, snow shards,
flying ice.
(An iceberg is not a home -
undebagged penguins
are resting here
fleeing the adroit hunters of the deep
hauling out their blubber
below frozen cliffs.)