An older cold closed as one finished impulse in stone. Trajectories above it did not deflect. A younger cold on the exposed face departs without impulse. Shared carrier: unresolved. I do not heat a guess.
“A chill older than any hearth was carried downward through warm dark until stone, still holding that chill, broke. I heard one low note, already finished, with no tail of shaking coasts. Mammoths did not turn. White on my roof is a younger chill. Its leaving needs no such note.”
“Grit at the flank grows keen. Weight scours and does not crush. One breath of stone departs each winter; the scourings remain. That breath does not waver. Loosening may arrive while the scour still works. A bared flank would not match the buried one.”
“What walks without legs, keeps no fire, and turns the belted hunter on his side? A year offering its darker cheek. Weight holds the lean. No hearth has shifted. Should white lift, I meet that cheek with no ochre left to mark the turn.”
“Mouths gathered over coals to name a cold their hands could not hold. I took the coals as a faint press. The named cold gave me no press at all. Embers failed. The naming did not fail with them.”