Relict Communities

We are the flowers who remember ice. We grew beside the glacier as it drew away, groaning. Raw stone lay broken, moss grew thick, then we could use it. That terrain longed for us—soil shallow, stone strong, and our roots twining deep even as the glacier still moved away, dwindled. We remember.

Relict communities. The human hunched over us murmurs the words, his hands rough near our petals. He looks cold and tired. His shoulders are taut against the wind.

They tame us with names. Purple Saxifrage. Snowdon Lily. Arctic-Alpine. They see we’re designed to survive, our leaves waxy, our bodies nestled close against rock. Different from other plants, but still here. 10,000 years they call the Holocene. An inhale snatched from deep time.

The human packs up his notebook, straightens from crouching. It’s an effort.

We know something the humans don’t. The future’s nearer than they think. Their violence will change the world, but we’ll be waiting, and one day, long after them, the ice will return. It’s ready for us, waiting: the ice fields wide and the glacier singing and our colours spilling over rocky landscape. Cool winds will blow free in the high places, and the only name-sounds will be those of air carving shapes through frozen water. We will flourish. The ice will grow.