Analysis of Windigo



A solitary traveler,
Abroad on snowshoes with his team,
Stops to crack the ice and take
A drink from a still flowing stream.

The wintry sun slants toward the west,
Evening falls on forest and lake.
From out the sylvan depths he hears
A heavy tread, a spruce limb break.

The lead dog sniffs the air and snarls,
The others, still in harness rise.
The willows part and there he stands,
A giant, murder in his eyes.

Gaunt and haggard, forest-tall,
Icicles hang from arms out-stretched,
Windigo with heart of ice
Clasps the traveler to his chest.

The dogs run off along the trail,
Though still in traces running fast.
The bloody stains upon the snow
Bear witness to the brute's repast.

But though he's gorged on human flesh
Windigo can never feel
His appetite is satisfied,
However big the gruesome meal.

He grows commensurate to the feast,
Gaunt and skeletal as before.
His head above the treetops now,
Still ravenous to his very core.

Now GDP growth at 3%
Is good, but not as good as 4.
Another mountain's worth of coal!
And lithium, and iron ore.

More plastic things are what we need,
And hydro power for the mills,
(An un-dammed river's such a waste),
And lakes of oil, ignore the spills.

These miracles of chemistry,
Alloys, polymers and glass,
Use them once, then toss away,
Excrescence on the roadside grass.

Fell the forests, empty the seas
Of all that breathe and swim and crawl.
We've grown so large, is that enough?
Not yet, we haven't killed them all.

Enormous! Are we sated yet?
No.  Industry is not so clever.
Our modern windigo's awful maw
Remains as ravenous as ever.


Scheme ABCB DCXC XEXE FXXD XXXD XGXG XHXH XXXH XIXI XJXJ XFXF XAXA
Poetic Form Quatrain  (83%)
Metre 0100100 0111111 1110101 01101101 010110101 10111001 11010111 01010111 01110101 01010101 0110111 01010011 1010101 10011111 11111 10100111 01110101 11010101 01010101 1101011 11111101 11101 110110 1010101 110100101 10100101 1101011 110011101 1111 1111111 01010111 01000101 11011111 0110101 11110101 01110101 11001100 110001 1111101 11011 10101001 11110101 11111101 11110111 01011101 110011110 10101101 011100110
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 1,591
Words 333
Sentences 24
Stanzas 12
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4
Lines Amount 48
Letters per line (avg) 26
Words per line (avg) 6
Letters per stanza (avg) 103
Words per stanza (avg) 24

About this poem

Inspired by the Algonquin legends of the windigo, the ice monster of the northern forests. He is the embodiment of winter, cold, darkness, ice and hunger. His hunger is never satisfied because he grows ever larger in proportion to what he eats, which strikes me as an appropriate metaphor for the modern economy.

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Written on April 23, 2022

Submitted by dogojim3 on May 25, 2022

Modified on April 22, 2023

1:42 min read
80

Jim Gardiner

Retired biochemist, first-time poet. more…

All Jim Gardiner poems | Jim Gardiner Books

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