From the recording FIVE - THE FIFTH SEASON
“Cracked Ice” reflects on the fragility of what we once trusted to be unshakable—both in nature and in ourselves. The shifting winter of flash-freeze, rain, and rivers that “forget how to freeze” becomes a metaphor for a world where permanence is an illusion: climate change unsettles the seasons while personal certainties fracture under “the weight we bear.” The splintering ice is both literal and symbolic, a “fragile song” of loss and impermanence, reminding us that even the ground beneath us—emotional or environmental—can suddenly give way.
Lyrics
Verse 1
Winter comes in surges—
flash-freeze, black ice, rain.
Rivers forget how to freeze,
their mirrors break again.
Chorus
Cracked ice—listen to it splinter,
underneath the weight we bear.
Cracked ice—memory of winter,
a fragile song in thinning air.
Verse 2
Grey sky shivers open,
glass tides strain and bend.
Every sheet of silence
sings that nothing’s permanent.
Chorus
Cracked ice—listen to it splinter,
underneath the weight we bear.
Cracked ice—memory of winter,
a fragile song in thinning air.
Bridge
Rain on the frozen skin,
pulse of the world runs thin.
What we thought was solid ground
is letting go, is breaking down.
Final Chorus
Cracked ice—listen to it splinter,
underneath the weight we bear.
Cracked ice—memory of winter,
a fragile song in thinning air.