The Ablation of Time   At close range the clash of a cloudburst lapses in an instant.   Trussed up like bulging penguins, we huff, our breath freezing on our faces. Belittled as krill by the blue bolt glacier, one mile wide, as it enters the ocean.   Novice glaciologists analyse the rifts and the stretched crevasses, cavities in the body of serrated ice held only by tensile strength.   The crowd murmurs, anticipates the spectacle, the sonorous drumfire, of ice ablation. An observer predicts, with conviction, that any minute a precarious slab, angular, will break loose and collapse. Ecstasy…