We Were Monsters

by JONNY ROTHBERG

The decaying terminus of the Trient Glacier as seen from Fenetre d’Arpette, Switzerland. 100 years ago, the Trient Glacier would have filled the entirety of this image frame, fully blocking the Trient Valley from wall to wall. The bare, scoured rock visible in this picture is evidence of that, from a time when glaciers ruled the earth and ground mountains into molehills.

by JONNY ROTHBERG

We were flakes, just wee little flakes back then, Mere frost flecks and pure ice crystals. Bound together by pressure, it was fate back then, In the cirques we’d become god’s chisels.

We were firn, yes firn we became back then, New snow, new brothers grew old. Each winter, each blizzard, each cloud, each flake, We swelled into giants in the cold.

We were snowfields who turned into icefields back then, Up there did we glisten and grow. From those places of stone, of sky, we went, To the valleys we crashed and we flowed.

And then we were monsters, great monsters back then, Under blue glass the world fell silent. From wee little seeds we had blossomed and flourished. Now even the rock we made pliant.

Monsters, great monsters; kings even then, Through us was earth born anew. In blue and white armor, shining we tended, With our claws the whole planet we hewed.

Sculptors and architects we were back then, Through boulders and bedrock we snaked. Great ridges we carved into valleys and ranges, Our dead became your treasured lakes.

But now we are wounded, we’re dying and dead, Proud blues and whites bruise into browns. The snow does not nourish, it taunts us instead, Of when we wore on our heads crowns.

Now we’re firn, soon we’ll be flakes again, Our time on this planet draws near. And then we’ll be down, and you’ll look all around, at the bare rock where we met our end.

When you search for us you’ll come to realize something, something which wasn’t quite clear. All this time under the ice we were etching, “monsters, we monsters were here.”