the grime comes mixed in with smiles, sunlight and welcome
the indigent on the mattress round the corner from microcenter swank
i suppress the horror stories from middle american well-meaners
yet clutch my satchel closer strolling into San Telmo
wonder if i should regret having no reception for the two young men
who call out as i pass
in Ushuaia, the spare inhabitants take morning air
strolling to their aerodrome and back
the thing about the cliche
it’s been said before
often said better
occasionally worse
overdone
trite
but
left unsaid
is like betrayal
in Mikkelson bay
the chocolate is hot
and salted with farewell
we humans love our penguins, it’s not doubted
when oohs and aahs are polled and tabulated
gentoo, chinstrap or adelie
triumph over gull, tern, shag (the bird, and maybe the activity)
how chuffed we are to learn
(from steve)
our feelings aren’t unrequited
gentoos, it appear, love back the human presence
liking to nest where people have peopled
choosing this old Argentine search and rescue shack
as the site for their conquest
a penguin outhouse?
an ice-boat?
Captain Oliver broke the news last night
unfriendly winds and currents gather in the drake
wait upon explorer’s parting wake
it’s time, too soon, for turn-abouting
home a-heading, ceding our southing
farther south into Lemaire than any vessel in this thaw
we trawl through brash ice
seeking activities for the afternoon
(as if wonder needs our doing to be real)
the argentine islands are iced inaccessible
but the captain calls a pit stop
to deliver reparation tools
to faraday base
(now under ukraine management)
to refurbish a ramshackle
but, i’m assured, historic
hut
watching a leopard seal
i miss the hut’s significance
entirely
it’s a north wind, says Kim
that blisters us off our feet
on booth island where we
are first boots off-boat this season
to the left we lay the year’s new trail up Charcote’s Cairn
the gale so fierce that hugging the hill
i finally feel expedition-worn, scott and shackleton worthy
hoary, weather-beaten and, at the edge, the first true fear of fall
Charcote took two ships south last century’s turn
wintering deliberately, frozen in fast ice
chosing his crew for fortitude to last
through tunnel of perpetual night
some scientists, some explorers and a novelist
his transmission post today a fallen crucifix
swept downhill, we skirt the roiled bay
whipped into black ungruent gruel
yet a family of crabeater seals frolic unimpressed
among the feather-tailed penguins
`
the gentoos at Port Luckroy have nested
dated, consumated
gestated
4 lasses and a lad cultivate them and the tour boats
visiting the station’s museum and gift shop
where limited edition commemorative
jackets of Scott’s southern grounding
go for u s dollars 375
it’s a sought-after posting
to summer this way
advertised annually by the trust
now tasked to preserve
this secret spy base
circa second world war
in the library old copies of
reader’s digest and ice station zebra
make me nostalgic for cosy childhood
(not to mention the bottle of bovril)
i remember them later
when i squeeze in an hour
crunching through brash ice
on a kayak
it would appear (after all the big talk, slick walk)
that only today do we touch Antarctic proper
no islandic rock no more
it is continental shelf we tour
a glacier so frail
with a rumble and a roar
it sheds a slice
as we scale its shoulder
to perch near its eyes
before we take the tobbogan down
at the top i stayed a while
napped in warm snow
atop continental plinth
lapped in fortune’s gift
antipodal 2011 