Tag: Antarctic

Polar Poetry Featured in New Book & Exhibition

My good friend Dave Walsh is an accomplished and well travelled photographer, who has just published a book of his remarkable images of remote polar places available for purchase: click here.

He asked me to collaborate on this project and as a response to the images I composed twenty small poems for inclusion in the book (available by clicking here).

I was honoured to introduce Dave’s exhibition ‘The Cold Edge’ in Dublin, 13th September at the Copper House Gallery. For more information and superb images see Dave’s website.

Polar Haiku

A new book, featuring some of these poems with their original inspiration images by photographer Dave Walsh is now available by clicking here.

Iceberg

Round Hall, now empty –
Echoing still, with proud boasts ~
Walls glow from within.

Dolphin

Lucky pair, untouched –
By our hands ~ delicious –
Frolic, salty, cold.

Wave

A splash –
Between your limbs –
Warmer than you.

Whale

A lone humpback whale –
Singing songs, that go unheard –
Bouncing, wall to wall.

Luna

Archean craton –
Its sister, shines high above –
The straight and the smooth.

Slush

The heat approaches –
Soon no ice will be left here –
Enjoy while you can.

Seabird

Our Tor, high and true-
Ice: our metamorphic rock –
‘The Black Republic’.

Giant

A sleeping giant –
Frozen in time, undisturbed –
Dreaming of warm Sun.

Bridge

An Ice Rialto –
No merchants, no canals here –
Pure wind, eye of God.

Pool

Ovaries and womb –
Centered with a melted child –
Reverse pregnancy.

Nanuk

Fibre optic hair –
Conceals my Arctic night skin –
Soon I will move South.

Ridge

Many fingered hand –
Squashes the ice, and drops it –
White, fresh cold mála.

River

A race with the sun –
To be ice-bound ox-bow lake –
Unseen, transient.

Passage

Ephemeral coasts –
Ice melting ~ we now keep pace –
With our satellites.

Tern

Maniraptoran –
High above the ice ~ supreme –
Little black-eyed god.

Fox

How now, my Brother?
Pray, never have occasion ~
to smell of my blood.

Walrus

Scourge of the bivalves –
and much else ~ the tusks reserved –
mainly for fighting.

Seal

Eyes atop my head –
Near submerged, checking for bears –
and photographers.

Buried

The warmer ice gets –
More and more stuff is revealed –
Like meteorites.

Bear

Midnight Polar Sun,
Endless light illuminates ~
White Bear’s shadowself.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Inspired by images of the Arctic and Antarctic taken by my friend Dave Walsh:

http://davewalshphoto.com/blog/

Nature’s Bulldozer

This curious thing:
A wall of white, approaching –
We are in retreat.

Ice wall advancing –
Erasing past and future –
The road not taken.

Ice melts, retreating-
Concrete eskers, black morraines –
Ruins, roads ~ ground ~ dust.

Melt waters, flowing –
Red bricks, lining fresh cold streams –
The deepest of clean.

[There is nothing new under the Sun]

He’s by the river –
Unaware, of detail, past –
The salmon, returned.

Click here for my speech introducing my friend Dave Walsh’s ‘The Cold Edge’ polar photography exhibition, including a reading of this poem.