In Griffith’s cold, we store our borrowed fear
in Lillian Gish’s dress against the ice,
where panic whitens into spectacle
and rescue looks too clean to be believed.
The river breaks itself beneath her body,
the camera shakes, the old mill wheel turns,
men shout from shore as if a human voice
could stop what winter wants to carry.
Her cheek flashes pale in the nitrate light,
then disappears behind the broken floes,
and something in us leans toward the danger
because no death should ever look so clear.
Alive, she is stronger than our need
to make her holy, helpless, bright, and pure.
The girl rides past forest, smoke, and shore,
past every hand that reaches almost in time.
D. W. frames danger as a frozen world.
We want Gish lifted into myth and snow.
She wants the bank. She wants her breath. She climbs.