Melting Snow

Poem about Lake Baikal

‘Idál (Justice), 11 Kamál (Perfection), 173 BE - Wednesday, August 10, 2016 AD

I wrote this poem approximately 22 years ago after seeing a documentary about Lake Baikal. I think the documentary was on channel 10 because at that time we didn't have cable so I couldn't haves seen it on the Discovery Channel or Animal Planet. Anyway a couple of months ago I caught a bug about cleaning out my desk drawers. I found out that all the drawers in my computer desk are Junque Drawers containing numerous things except my kennel of pet peeves. Since I have decided whether to rewrite this poem or say it's finished I'm posting it in this entry.

Lake Baikal

Born amid a hell-storm of fire and water,
The Sacred Sea of Siberia
is a living presence
that creates poets and ice caves.

It's a living entity
bearing proudly the insult of "Lake"
when in reality
it's a land-locked sea
and tied by evolution
to creatures
uniquely critical to its purification.

It's a spiritual force:
its shores decorated with prayer flags,
its waters hidden beneath thick mist in summer
and covered with impenetrable ice in winter.

For its people
it's their livelihood and past;
for its children
it's their playground and their future;
for its creatures
it's their cradle and their grave.

Baikal,
the Sacred Sea of Siberia,
threatened by Salonga's pollution
and desecrated by packets of pollution
must become the sacred sea of civilization
or cease to exist.