Archive of Thaw

At dawn the glacier opens like a library door, blue shelves breathing cold into my sleeves. I carry a lantern that hums in a minor key, and dust of ancient summers lifts around my boots.

In each trapped bubble, storms rehearse their names, elk bells, soot, the ghost of wheat fields burning. I press my ear to the ice and hear a city being built backward, crane by crane, into silence.

Meltwater threads the tunnels with bright vowels, a quick, silver grammar over stone. My notebook warps; the ink learns to swim, every sentence drifting toward the mouth of spring.

By noon the mountain gives me back to sunlight. Pollen spins where snow used to begin. I close the ledger, warm as bread in my hands, and the valley keeps turning its unread page.