My Antarctica is green with bending light from the
sun, a thousand
avocadoes, for the longest time, her only grass.
My Antarctica weeps with longing ­ penguins
for their chicks, with 100 souls
for the first and only time flying, westward, under
copper crowns, for the
want of krill and the touch of slick black fins.
My Antarctica holds Scott and his men, closely, and
the sleep of dogs and
horses from a far-flung, kinder pole; she holds us in
her release; she begs
us for our own sake to stay away, but we reach her in
the form of invisible
clouds.
My Antarctica groans with the crush of ice, snapped
like a towel upward in
the wind. If we are to rise, it must never fall.
My Antarctica weeps because she is melting. She spills
a Nile's worth, and
more. Islands are traffic, stalled in her veins.
My Antarctica has much to give, but must be kept from
giving. Sleep they
must, her birds and dinosaurs of the equatorial age,
if we are to remain
awake. |
Meg Smith is a journalist, poet, events producer
and fiction writer living in Lowell Mass. Her poetry
has appeared in The Cafe Review, Poetrybay, Erosha,
The Offering, Tryst, Pudding, The Cafe Review, Renovation
Journal and others. She is a member of the board of
directors of the annual Lowell Celebrates Kerouac! literary
festival. Sher performs Oriental dance with the name
Morgana, and is associate editor of Middle Eastern Dance
in New England magazine and staff writer with Jareeda
magazine of Middle Eastern Dance. She is the editor/publisher
of Red Eft, a literary journal of horror and Gothic
writing and arts, at http://redeft.tripod.com.
She also welcomes visits to her Web site, http://poet-in-motion.com.
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