Wading in Dry Ice

Featured Image Above: A quiet stretch of the Moorabool, holding its breath in the summer heat.”

Nancy >> RDP Thursday: river – The Elephant’s Trunk
Nancy’s haiku about winter’s thin ice stirred something in me this morning. Her quiet image of a fragile river set my thoughts drifting back home, where our waterways are thinning for a very different reason. Her words nudged me toward the dry, sunburnt world I’ve been watching all summer, and this poem arrived as my response





Wading in Dry Ice

Hardly a drop of rain
Has fallen on our sunburnt plains
Rivers are slimy drains
No fields of grain
Nor wading cranes
Only dusty stains
On the windowpanes

And again
Dry ice runs through my veins
While the windmill vanes
Rotate in vain




“I’ve always felt this song holds the heartbeat of a parched Australian summer. It seemed the right companion for these words.”





Ivor Steven  ©  February 2026

Published by

Unknown's avatar

ivor20

G'day, and welcome to my blog site. My name is Ivor Steven, I live in Geelong, Australia. I'm an ex-industrial chemist, and a retired plumber, and a former Carer of my wife(Carole), for 30 years, who suffered from severe MS. I Write poetry about those personal thoughts, throughout and beyond my life as a Carer. I've been blogging for over 2 years, and writing poems for 19 years. Of course a lot of my poems are about my favourite subject Carole, but since I've been blogging my writings have become quite varied, humourous, mystical, observational, and even a few monster/horror poems.

9 thoughts on “Wading in Dry Ice”

Leave a comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.