Dreams of the Ice
"Dreams of the Ice"
Born beneath fluorescent skies,
Not northern stars, not wind-whipped cries,
She came to life on concrete floor,
Behind the bars, beyond the roar.
They named her queen of arctic white,
Though she had never felt moonlight
On snowdrifts vast or ocean's breath,
Just glassy walls and rubber death.
But when she sleeps, the zookeepers know,
She stirs as if beneath the snow.
Her paws twitch slow in frozen dance,
She journeys far in dreaming trance.
She dreams of blizzards howling loud,
Of breaking through the icy shroud,
Of hunger sharp, the scent of prey,
A seal beneath the drifted gray.
She feels the sting of wind so wild,
The wilderness both fierce and riled.
No keepers here, no midday feed,
Just raw survival, tooth and need.
She hunts, she fails—then hunts again,
She limps through cold and bites through pain.
Until one day, success runs red,
A single kill, a seal now dead.
She feasts beneath aurora fire,
Flesh and bone, her deep desire.
She roars not out of cruelty—
But for the ancient right to be.
Then from the white, another form,
A shape like hers, yet fierce and warm.
A male who smells of strength and snow,
A stranger she somehow seems to know.
They circle, clash, then lie in peace,
Their breath a cloud that will not cease.
And later still, beneath the dawn,
A cub is born, soft-furred and drawn.
Her dream grows bright with cub’s first yawn,
With pawprints pressed in polar dawn.
Together they roam, wild and free,
In realms she knows she’ll never see.
The crowd outside will never guess
The lives she leads in sleep’s caress.
For though she’s caged in human care,
Her soul is out there—anywhere.
