Ice Man

Deception sometimes overcomes true love...

 

From Cap de Hault to Frenchman's Lease

Lies seven miles of moving ice,

A lady comes there once or twice a year

To view that precipice.

The glacier, that tortuously

Grinds along that deep moraine

Is known to all as 'Adam's Fault',

And Eve despairs the bleak terrain.

 

Eve Grise de Mare du Montalban

The countess from her place of fame,

Who played coquettish with her fan

When first to Adam's Fault she came.

Gervase and I both courted Eve

But she played him, and then played me,

The contest was uneven, for

Gervase was old nobility.

 

We both enjoyed a hearty climb

And took our contest to the 'Fault',

Who first would conquer Frenchman's Lease

And reach the peak, should win it all;

The right to ask the lady's hand,

To claim the prize of her by right,

The loser, then, would quit the scene,

Would disappear him, overnight.

 

The day was cold, a storm was due,

We set out with our picks and rope,

The ice was clear as rippled glass

As we ascended up the slope.

We'd made three of the seven miles

Before the storm burst over us,

Gervase was slightly in the lead

But stopped beside the Fault to rest.

 

The glacier was close beside

When I pulled up to shelter, then

A crevice, fifteen metres wide

Had opened up, quite close to him.

Gervase half turned, the blinding sleet

Reduced our vision down to naught,

He sought direction with his feet

And pitched head first into the Fault.     

 

The depth seemed bottomless, I heard

Eventually, a distant thud,

Gervase had hit the glacier floor

And I was certain he was dead.

The storm, in one short hour had flown,

I turned and headed down again

To summon help, but he was gone;

I never saw Gervase again.

 

A year had passed, I asked my Eve

Her hand in marriage, and she wept;

I knew she loved Gervase, not me,

But he had gone… She would accept;

On one condition, that we two

Would journey back to Adam's Fault

Each year, until the glacier

Delivered up its grisly vault.

 

I had agreed, for then I knew

How slow the glacial ice would flow,

To bring that body down the Fault

Might take a hundred years or so.

But warming of the planet's face,

In recent years, increased its speed,

Though forty seven years had passed

Gervase would surface soon, indeed.

 

Last season, workers on the slopes

Had claimed to see a darkened shape

Deep in the ice at Cap de Hault,

But too deep to negotiate.

My mouth went dry, and I perspired

To think of that unholy hour

When Eve would see her love, Gervase

And set that love, again, on fire.

 

This year, I begged her not to go:

'We're getting old, too old for this,'

I pleaded, but her mouth was set:

'We must be there for our Gervase!'

A week went by, and then the call:

'A man lies underneath the ice,

We see him clear,' the worker said,

'He's staring, looking up at us!'

 

So Eve and I walked up the slope

To see Gervase, entombed in ice,

He looked much as I'd left him there,

Eve sighed and wept: 'My poor Gervase!'

'He's just a boy!' she sobbed, and looked

Surprised he wasn't old, like us,

The world had aged, and so had we

But he had travelled with less fuss.

 

And so I'm back, have locked our room

And left Eve to her love, Gervase,

I have a need to write my gloom

Before they take him from that place,

For when they pull that body free

From fifty years of shifting ice,

She'll see what she's not meant to see

Emerge from that old precipice.

 

For when they roll him from his bed

While Eve looks on, remembering,

I'll long have left this place of dread,

One bullet, swift, dismembering,

Will leave no pain, no guilt behind

Unlike the corpse of her Gervase,

Unlike the ice pick in his spine…

The shock and horror, on her face!

 

David Lewis Paget

Reviews

[Melanie Jane Boicourt S..]

Very nice. I loved the flow and story enclosed in a poem. I see why you gave me such a horrible review. Your style is totally different than the poem you read of mine. Yes, yours has a beggining and an end and a story in between. Not all poetry is set like that. I do love the style and it reminds me of Shakespearean times. The rhyme scheme wasn't perfect but it was close enough to flow nicely. The story itself was also very good. That is pretty much what I expected but it was told within the rigid syllable count that you kept throughout the whole piece which was very impressive.
I used to write more like that with the rigid syllable settings and all. I still actually do write some of my poetry like that. Here on the Cafe, I have tried to allow myself to experiment with different styles.
I hope you will be a little more open to other styles as well. If not in writing them, then at least not being quite so harsh when you review them.
Excellent poem.
Love All, Mejasha

[roarke]

heh. sorry, saw it coming a mile away.... hahahaha. But such is the competition of love and wooing fair maids. But that's just the surface here. themes of love are obvious. The author's dry wit and charm deliciously evident, there's also conceit, doing dare, ego centrism, the keeping of a promise, an era past, envy.... the list goes on and on and all expressed in just a few stanza's.

"Eve Grise de Mare du Montalban" it was worth reading for just her name alone...

superb story telling, bar none.

[Lena M. P.]

Again I didn't see that ending coming. You lead me down a merry chase you did. Shame on you. I loved it.

[lilain]

I dagger went through my heart upon reading the final stanza.

But, you're story strikes me for so many reasons. I love ice climbing and understand just how dangerous of an adventure it can be. One misstep and you are done. One fall into a crevasse and... well, you know. On a side not, have you read "Touching the Void"?

What is most interesting is that we hear the story from the loser's point of view. Sure, he won Eve - he married her - but he couldn't conquer her love for Gervase. Such a different take and I like it. Sad, but nice to hear the poor guys view.

I love your work. It resides high in celestial clouds where I read from Gaia's grassy floor. Bravo!

[Chad Wesley Allbrett]

I love your stuff mate!
You are allways worth the read, and a delight of time.

[Wildfleour]

So intense. What a passionate story told within the structure of a poem.....

Interesting comment by Mejasha....

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This was a thrill. You are a masterful poet in the classical sense. I felt you working in this to get it right. You have painted a marvelous canvas filled with life and movement that weaves back and forth and an intriguing story with punch at the end. I was held spellbound. Before reading this I had just reworked a poem of my own. I was deeply in its rhythm and was naturally attempting to read this with the same tempo and rhythm. As I first read Eve's name ... I Googled her to find out who she was. Ha! The first two references were to this poem.

[EvesDaughter]

Again, you have enchanted me with your
flair for telling a story. You are a brilliant
man. I cannot say anymore than this.

[Norma J. Jessee]

A tightly woven, emotionally potent tale of deception. I just had to sit back and allow the story to run through my mind until I absorbed the delpth of all I'd just read.
When secrets are revealed,
And lies are exposed,
Anything can happen;
Even suicide.

Great work David. I loved it.