Höfn
Höfn - meaning Summary
Glacial Scale and Unease
The poem describes a vast glacier beginning to melt, and the speaker imagines the immense ice mass moving across the land. Its scale feels ancient and threatening, and the speaker responds with fear and wonder rather than comfort. The poem turns the glacier into a force that can block warmth, speech, and ordinary human certainty, making the landscape seem larger and older than people.
Read Complete AnalysesThe three-tongued glacier has begun to melt. What will we do, they ask, when boulder-milt Comes wallowing across the delta flats And the miles-deep shag-ice makes its move? I saw it, ridged and rock-set, from above, Undead grey-gristed earth-pelt, aeon-scruff, And feared its coldness that still seemed enough To iceblock the plane window dimmed with breath, Deepfreeze the seep of adamantine tilth And every warm, mouthwatering word of mouth.
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