Cultural Climate

On the centers of frozen lakes,

they built crystal palaces of ice

to demonstrate their faith that

climate was immutable. The study

of paleontology and geology was

outlawed; apostates were flung

into glacial rifts and moulins—

but certain academics concealed

ancient records and core samples,

pretended to illicit-but-winked-at

affairs in storage closets to mask

proscribed instruction. Long after

no laws could conceal the cascades

of meltwater or dwindling snows,

it was still fashionable, in those

shrinking, glassy realms, to burn

the wood of forest upon lost forest

in suspended cages of black iron,

to pretend to shudder with cold.