Produced by Maine Poetry Central and Dennis Camire

This week’s poem by Bruce Guernsey beautifully describes an icehouse of old, and the wonderful ending turns the poem into a quiet, cool ode that soothes.

The Icehouse

By Bruce Guernsey

Where the puckerbrush snags your lure

along the west side of the lake

is where the icehouse stood, black with wet

in the sweat of summer, glistening all winter.

I cast to the pilings rising like masts

from the water, from the mist, and see the breath

of horses dragging blades, their muscled thighs —

hear the men in rubber aprons, slick as fish,

cursing the blocks, the cold, prodding each piece

with their spikes to the shore. All afternoon

the clank, the hiss of the belt lifting

chunk after chunk through the winter light

to its dark bed of hay in this place

of black timber, this ship rising like a dream

through the sand, through the rock, its hold

cradling silver, cooling the fruit of summer.