Antarctica
By Paul Cameron Brown
Perhaps it is needed to balance the planet: to provide
employment for penguins, or that ice in the form of
crystals calls forth tiny sleighs.
That the orange hibiscus be associated only with deepest tropics
...plankton learn to feed Baleen whales
And iron hulks, off ships. submit to greater Masters. the elements.
Second Theories
Another supposition projects...
snowy wastes are but vapour trails of jets and tatter sails.
Sleet comes only from cannonized rain, galvanized by inclement ironmongers.
Yet a third hypothesizes frozen energy is stored in the
form of ice caps and that the lost amongst departed
souls are reborn with every powdery breath.
Ptolemy knew of a southern polar continent. Cook
and Shackelton attempted separate conquests. Ships
voyaged as early twentieth century probes amid
frozen stellar space nudging Earth's feet.
Footprints the size of muskets where left as evidence.
So were a few red flags. No oxygen bottles trailed the
ascent like those that packed Everest. Amundsen as
to Hillary across the South Sea face, yet this
Matterhorn has a logic and bedevilment all her own.
Norway and Russia claim exploration of her frigid
body. The British in the first virginal thrust
christened Queen Maud Land after a brilliant
courtship. Shades of Spencer and his Faery Queen;
the Kron Prins Olaf Coast, anyone?
Ice. South of the Antipodes. The floor of the world.
Magnificant pack to the drunken global jaw, growlers
or submerged ice packs. A cold porterhouse steak to
ward off the combattive edge, the chronic boxer's
inflamed orifice and eye-the nosebleed's staunchest friend.
Terra Australis Incognita, the supposed southern
continent; hoof of the Cenotaur stringing men like a
bow across nipples like raw wounds. clotted hair and
blood on a precipice for a chest.