From the night before, and the whistling green
Shrubbery are doomed. Ice
Has got its spearhead into place.
First a skin, delicately here
Restraining a ripple from the air;
Soon plate and river on pond and brook;
Then tons of chain and massive lock
To hold rivers. Then, sound by sight
Will Mammoth and Sabre-tooth celebrate
Reunion while a fist of cold
Squeezes the fire at the core of the world,
Squeezes the fire at the core of the heart,
And now it is about to start.
The final sentence is ambiguous. The reader might wonder what is “about to start”? The Ice-age in this poem certainly has already started. The changes that lead to successive past ages, ultimately to the modern world and modern society and civilisation, follow. 
 The value placed on this is left an open question. What is “about to start” may be a negative and ugly world.
October Dawn