Pingo

Look with me, it said, across this ice-patterned ground, past
the frost boils, the polygons, the scoured
shield rock. Relax. Let the wind lift

this top casing, this skin of sphagnum and sedge. It scatters easily
among the waving cottongrass, beneath ptarmigan and hare.
Let the midnight sun slide

on its slant ridge roll and gild your conical slopes, volcanic, like the
mountains. We wait, cloaked in rose and awe
for your undoing. This is the scary part, it said

but the freedom is in the melting flow of possibility, of disassembly.
Look to the lupine, the snowy owl, the string bog.
They will tell you of moonlight, solifluction, and birch. They will tell you

to trust that nature does not, in fact, abhor the vacuum
but adores it, rushing to fill it perfectly, with delight.
It’s time to open, it said. That ice core, that frozen magma shape

has kept you out of reach
for long enough. Change the light in your own way.
You belong here, whatever your form.