See our feature on Iced Water Iced Water was published in 2000 by Salmon Publishing Ltd., Cliffs of Moher, County Clare, Ireland To order visit Salmon Publishing Iced Water page Publisher’s email: [email protected] Other books available from www.chapters.ca Balancing of the Clouds Ruskin and St. Mark’s For more Poets

John Unrau Brother Drychthelm of Melrose Ecclesiastical History of England, book 5, chapter12 Bede pictures you up to your throat in the icy Tweed chanting prayers through the night then standing rigid on the bank until your rags have dried against shrinking flesh, and explains that you abandoned your old wife to face these trials solely for eternal gain. Such cynicism may satisfy ecclesiastical historians but many prairie winters and their esoteric joys suggest less calculating aims as I look down into the darkening eddy where you once prayed to the soft calling of owls; and, old sensualist, I cannot help but raise my voice with yours tonight for I see you stand ecstatic in this black coil of splintered stars, your blood cooling pulse slowing to the chill of the great stream the drift of Orion across the January sky. Untitled Leaning over this old well I drop the snow-filled bucket to splinter ice a hundred feet below. Again that shifty sky and alerted silence; faraway howl once more of the night train for Saskatoon; and again after seventeen years from beyond all western mountains you bringing unrest upon me as I haul starlight and iced water in a narrow pail. New-Age Muskie Considers A Change of Lifestyle ”Isn’t it about time for the armaments industry to take advantage of this peace dividend and retool for peace?” –U.S. senator commenting on the end of the Cold War I’ve had trouble digesting lately funny twinges too like the other day when I had that duckling almost in my teeth and suddenly swerved aside at the killing moment a smallish cousin from near the dock has started nosing around my weed bed— had to slash his tail today to move him: word must be getting around about me karma is the big worry— law of moral compensation and rebirth: settlement of outstanding debt some weeks I butcher and swallow twice my weight in twitching flesh even if I could die now I shudder to think what I’d come back as but the sportsmen keep sending me back down into my abbatoir: two years to go before I’m trophy size now they’ve banned the gang hooks that took months to dissolve from my throat and gills and helped me feel I was paying they’re even talking of barbless hooks to make their sport more sporting to me this is no game: I’m hungry all the time and if anything moves I can’t hold back I’ve tried weeds: they just stick in my teeth I’m trying to meditate: my eyes can’t close it’s almost certainly too late but please somebody stop me Muskellunge–the largest member of the Pike family and most prized of all North American game fishes. It is sought for its aerial acrobatics and hard fight, and also because anglers hope to establish a new record by catching one exceeding 32 Kg—Author’s Note.