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Ode to the Bag of Ice at the Gas Station

by Juniper Cole — the poem does not scroll away while you write about it.

The poem

Praise the chest freezer humming by the doorwith its one word, ICE, and its whole life's work:to keep a thing exactly what it was.

Praise the bag of it — eight pounds, three dollars,sweating already in my hand, and the sound of it,which is the sound of a small cheap avalanche.

Praise that nobody has ever once been sadabout a bag of ice. It is not for keeping.It is for the cooler, the cousin, the folding chair,the long green evening of somebody's whole July.

Praise a thing that is good only while it is going.Praise the going. Praise the cousin. Praise July.

The poet asked for: I have never written an ode before and I'm aware it's about a gas station. Is the last line one praise too many?

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Nadia Osei2026-09-20
No — the last line is the right number of praises, because by then you've switched from praising the object to praising the people it gathers, and July is doing the work of the whole evening. The gas station is not a problem. The ode has always been the form for taking something seriously in public.