Ice sonnet from Lars Gustafsson

Sonnet XXVII

To one below the surface of the ice

the ice itself looks as if something white

and openings and wind wells where still quite

open water moves look, if there’s a slice

of daylight left, as if expanses fraught

with darkness. And only he who knows aright

an exit lies in what is dark, that white

means darkness (that ice can so distort

conditions as they’re pictured by the eye)

and who, against his instinct, swims away

from light towards the dark sees day again.

There is, once a small habit stirs, or by

a word that changes meaning, a chance, though stray,

of someone getting out. That he sees day again.