- Madronna Holden
Polar Bears Dance their Sestina One Last Time
This ice belongs to the bears
and their moon-white
land, their prints gathered
into circles on the snow
as they slow-dance to the stars
in the Arctic sky.
The guardian-keepers’ sky
turning the crystal breath of the bears
into pictographs of stars
reflected on paths white
with creation’s snow
and luminescence gathered
as angels, gathered
to descend the stairs of the sky
on their wings of snow,
their feathers soft as the fur of bears:
harmonizing every white
thing with the singing stars--
But now with the praying stars --
for melting seas have gathered,
dark water interrupting the white.
as rain pours mercilessly from the sky,
the stars begin to swim and breathless bears
turn their heads toward the retreating snow--
toward the memory of snow,
its flakes singular and numerous as stars --
shaping arms of ice once gathered
to hold the bodies of the bears
rambling easily under the open sky
in their homeland white
as the roof of the world once was, white
as wind married to snow
under the beneficent sky
and its graceful stars--
illuming ice bright as bells gathered
into the music of life for the bears --
bears now in danger of becoming white
noise gathered on the absent snow:
stars rumored by the sky.