A Penguin Marches

Frozen water beneath my feet,
I stop at a small fault in my path.
This place is different than last year,
the trail is shifted,
if not that,
it’s gone.
There is nothing familiar,
and I suspect my tribe sees this too,
for I hear a stop in the beat
that is claws shuffling on the snow.
I look around,
ahead of the few penguins in front of me,
on to the stranger field of ice and snow
glistening in the March sun,
waiting,
unsure,
stumped.
Just then I feel a little spark
of an ancient flame inside of me.
My heart?
Did someone just call my name?
The flame burns inside me,
telling me secrets of my past.
A flash of bright, green and orange
colors flash in front of my dark,
beady eyes,
a strange place;
tropical,
vivid,
warm.
So warm in fact, that I can feel the sun’s glow
on my round belly,
the top of my head,
melting all the cold away,
like the ice encircling the field has gone.
But only a second later it dies
away, and the arctic freeze returns to me. But now
I know the path,
the secret is reviled,
directing me to that place I know
I am destined to go. So I, the knowing penguin
begins to waddle atop the ice once more,
and my tribe follows me,
I know they will follow me all the way;
I was not stumped for long.
-Mackenna Grasman

Inspired by the movie, March of the Penguins.