 Antarctica Waking (unaltered photography), by John Paul Caponigro (USA) contemporary  Antarctica Dreaming (digitally altered version), by John Paul Caponigro (USA) contemporary I Dream of Contrast Sometimes I pretend the churning night sky is smog collecting over a furnace, A swelling bruise on the air’s skin-- Destroying something so blue nothing blasphemous, Though dispersing shamefully in ashy shafts of wind. The world could use less blue, though I am blue, Though I resent that gray is the shade to coat it In gargoyle-ish, ugly hazes—converting beauty to mildew, Reducing my ridges of icy scaffolding to a misfit The tingle of numbness beneath my toes rivals that warm swirl above me Cold opposed to hot, water to blood, mist to a broiled air’s breath And while the clotty dark spots replace the stars momentarily, I wonder if—against all odds—being bleached by darkness means a star’s death Some beauties are beautiful on their own, While my beauty, without contrast, is unconcerning But my dreams of sweltering, smeared skies sets a deadly tone For if I dream of fire will I wake up burning? I cannot tell if I’m lighter in darkness than I am before a white backdrop, that if the sky is white then so am I or if the sky is black then I am not. The haze of my dream swirls above me imitating those chakly hues of ebony, though ghostly-- Featherlight, available only to me, borderless and overwhelming as the air in my lungs. Unfortunately, my lungs are brick-- Brick like cubes in the summer that melt in glasses. Brick like polar bear beds that crackle and drift. Brick like snow falling in painful pelts, dappling red irritations along the skin. I am not human as I feel, but a floating mass of what people call Beauty A chiseled ice brick that melts with the sky whether it's white or black. But I want to be more than that. I don’t want to Melt like I do when the sky is light, my ends interlaced with its beginnings as loveless lovers. No, I want Contrast like the darkness brings, the exhilarating pop of smoky chrome against my outline. So I dream of the heat to cause that mixing-- the storm necessary for my beauty, the darkness and anger and ferocity of frowning clouds, and I wake up burning. Julia Kroin Julia Kroin is a 9th grade student at Rye Country Day School. She enjoys writing in her free time and is currently working on a novel. She also writes for RCDS's school newspaper, as well as its literary magazine. In addition to her writing, Julia plays the bass guitar and will be joining her school’s jazz band next year. She loves taking her dog, D.J, to the beach whenever she can. ** In Your Dreamwake, A Whale Blue bleed through the glassy essence, wakelife into dreampivot: the glacier will examine you now. Follow the stream of pink quartz petrified in once molten granite. Faceted on the inside, the chamber holds you in a hum. What do you bring here? What will you take away, complicit in the melt? All your plastic convenience, the gravest. The dolphins were afraid for us. We didn’t know to be afraid. From the far shore we launched our red and yellow kayaks into the sound. Black paddles, our waterfeet, sliced air, coaxed water, propelling us toward immensity. Dolphins crossed our path. Auspicious, we thought. On a pebbled beach we stashed the red and yellow plastic vessels, tripped along the river through birch to a quartz pavement. We nearly turned back; it was further than we thought. The glacier receded as we advanced, didn’t want to be reached by us. Under the arch, a sapphire cave. Midsummer blue drips, crackle, a tunnel to the sky; a frequency that thrummed, reading our silent rhythms for their historical resonance. Dreamthrum of the watertwin, the whale in your mirrorwake seeks passage to the heart. Melt, freeze, cryofracture; cycle of your spires. Split by water expansion, your expansion; hollow blue welcome ushering the polyphonic wingrush, of feathers whispering the down draft, the down. Dolphins ride you home. Gayle Burgoyne Gayle Burgoyne is writer, creative coach and reformed management consultant who lives in London, UK. She loves to explore the strangeness of human reality through art and mountain sports, and writes while watching the foxes who live under the shed. ** My Affair Exposed Blue ice, her eyes staring into mine I try to look away but cannot—anger deep within synapses, sometimes hidden. but always dangerously there. I keep my distance. Jackie Langetieg Jackie Langetieg has published poems in journals and anthologies and won awards, such as WWA’s Jade Ring contest, Bards Chair, and Wisconsin Academy Poem of the Year. She has also been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She has written six books of poems, most recently, Snowfall and a memoir, Filling the Cracks with Gold. www.jackiella.wordpress.com ** Antarctica Licking a snowcone Fresh from the ground around me A frosty summer. Vast blue icebergs glide On the endless silent sea Bearing away dreams. Blue ice, cold, silence And glittering ice crystals Maddening stillness. Nivedita Karthik Nivedita Karthik is a graduate in Immunology from the University of Oxford. She is an accomplished Bharatanatyam dancer and published poet. She also loves writing stories. Her poetry has appeared in Glomag, The Society of Classical Poets, The Epoch Times, The Poet (Christmas, Childhood, Faith, Friends & Friendship, and Adversity issues), The Ekphrastic Review, Visual Verse, The Bamboo Hut, Eskimopie, The Sequoyah Cherokee River Journal, and Trouvaille Review. Her microfiction has been published by The Potato Soup Literary Journal. She also regularly contributes to the open mics organized by Rattle Poetry. She currently resides in Gurgaon, India, and works as a senior associate editor. Her first book of poetry, She: The reality of womanhood, was recently published by Notion Press (available on Amazon). ** Ice Blind The elements oppose us, my husband says, shivering harder than the wet dog scrabbling at his lap. Perched on the kitchen benches, our feet dangling in flood water, I brace the overhead cupboard doors against the onslaught of the disgruntled cat. Her travelling cage floated away in the night while we slept, lulled liquid by the silent river’s rise. Curling into the uneasy sling of the folding cot, I hunch a shoulder against the machinery grumble of the evacuation centre. My husband jostles his bed onto mine. His weight on the stacked sidebars tips me dizzy and I brace against the tumble. Forget land values, we’ll never own a patch of dirt. Frog-foot words, cool against my clammy ear. I fret about the cat, exiled to the ark made of a floating restaurant. I recall a parrot huddled in the hostess booth, the teenaged glower in her security camera eyes. With a thick hook, by lamplight, I crochet nets from videotape. My husband paces our assigned shipping container like a bunkered war criminal. Condensation beads on the metal walls, trickling in runnels, soaking the bare-board floor. Everything except my mouth is damp. Unmoored, the dog searches our faces for landmarks. The cat, holding the cupboard doors against me in her turn, has joined the mutiny led by the African Grey. I wish them well. We could inhabit an entire ice floe in the Antarctic, my husband says. There are jobs available, collecting scientific data. I crinkle loops of tape around my rust-stained fingers. Most of the cartridges lost their labels, soaked or faded into obscurity. Maybe the magnetic dots imperceptible to my finger tips are Bergman's gravestone face, turning from Bogart on the tarmac. Maybe a drowned neighbour’s sex tape. Morgana Macleod Morgana Macleod lives and writes on the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia. She has short stories published in several hard-copy anthologies you've never heard of, but you might have seen Thumbnail 5 and 6? Her work can also be found online at sites including New Flash Fiction Review, Medium and outofthegutteronline.com. Still buzzed by a recent Pushcart nomination, she's toying with writing a novel but concerned about the limits of her own attention span. Feel free to stalk her on Facebook (Morgana MacLeod) and Twitter @morganamacleod. ** Swept Away Swim I swim in current swirls each day sunrise smiles upon great glacier ribbed vertebrae to peaks – wind hewn ice art sculptured shapes above water- line icy water I turn and whirl chunk breaks off splash I see diminished shadows against sky white-blue ice a new tunnel They go explore new passage beneath beyond ribbed wall I’ve known dare I venture forth peer up precarious peak I fear groaning cracking swim I swim water warmer sink to cold depths will all glacier fall to ruin swept to sea where will I swim then? Julie A. Dickson Julie A. Dickson is a poet who finds peacefulness in water, sitting by a lake, stream or ocean. She writes of nature but also conflict and challenge, such as bullying and animal rights. Dickson holds a BPS in Behavioral Science: Gerontology from UNH and works in-home with elderly. Her work appears in New Verse News, Misfit and The Ekphrastic Review, among other journals and in full length on Amazon. ** Why Be Blue? An ice giant lay down and deliquesced, the only thing remaining now a spine and iliac crest. Did he fight or did he acquiesce, his discs like zipper teeth, like columns in a line? He yielded to the warming earth and fell. Why fight against reordering, one’s elements cupped and shaken like jacks before scattering? Why be blue in the light, or why be blue at being blue? Taken as a whole, any time at all is good, any life, any being. So few are, you know. Slimming, meagering even more into the flood, he goes. Soon, he’ll disappear. Soon, I’ll follow. Perhaps he’ll, we’ll, leave some echo, a distant researcher will see it, and say, Oh! Devon Balwit Devon Balwit walks in all weather. Her most recent collections are Rubbing Shoulders with the Greats [Seven Kitchens Press 2020] and Dog-Walking in the Shadow of Pyongyang [Nixes Mate Books, 2021]. https://pelapdx.wixsite.com/devonbalwitpoet ** The Wall An icy mitre Rough-hewed above the Bishop’s gate A welcome breach In a fortress colonnade The peaceful waters; reflecting, rippling Foretell no storm nor ill Yet sail with caution should you venture there For, by the morning, it will be no more Yet, the camera Preserved its state for us to know And ponder what might stand in stead When next the morning comes John Pettett John Pettett has followed Caponigro's work for many years and is now interested in ekphrasis as well. ** Antarctic Blues glacial blue's the colour of deep penetrating cold, first absorbed through your vision then that biting chill you cannot forget – long before the snowflakes fall the frigid air freezes any exposed patch of skin in seconds. It's the sound of ice candling that I love - a crinkle-tinkle, bell-like music from shards with pillared crystal structures and the specific blueness Antarctica has a monopoly on. As we sailed onward the ice colonnades and archway appeared in front of our boat, like magic. And then we began to wonder what might be through there - it could be the entry to a yet undiscovered domain that breaks down the barriers of reality, because in this place your head can never trust your eyes, and much less so your heart. Emily Tee Author's note: this is a Golden Shovel poem based on the quotation “first you fall in love with Antarctica, and then it breaks your heart” attributed to Kim Stanley. In a Golden Shovel poem the last word of each line makes up the chosen phrase. Emily Tee spent her working life wrangling numbers. Now retired, she has recently started writing poetry. She has had several pieces published in Ekphrastic Review challenges and will have some others in print later this year with other publications. She lives in England. ** Orchestra at the End of the World Listen – the earth is gnawing her teeth. Don’t you hear? Splintering the ice. Can’t you hear her? Mellifluous mourning day and night. Listen – the earth is crying jagged tears. Don’t you hear? Symphony of blues. Can’t you hear her? Depths of melancholy to drown in. Listen – the earth is screaming, writhing in pain. Don’t you hear? Monstrous movement. Can’t you hear her? Darkness spilling from her jaws. Listen – the earth is asking, a question over and over. Don’t you hear? Pleading, pleading. Can’t you hear her? Waiting on an answer, fading, fading... Siobhán Mc Laughlin Siobhán is a poet and creative writing facilitator from Co. Donegal in Ireland. Her poems have appeared previously in The Ekphrastic Review and on the latest episode of the TERcets podcast. Her work has also appeared in The Honest Ulsterman, Drawn to the Light Press, The Poetry Village, The Trouvaille Review, The Waxed Lemon and more. She is currently working towards her first collection, distracted by cats and coffee. ** Berg Again The blue/white sea dragon stills on the inky surface of its habitat, but above and below are meaningless. Timeless. The picture it makes could be of anything, all things, as the creature that exists in this moment cedes itself, incrementally, to the heat of our glances, the heat thrown off by humanity wandering ignorant of its very existence. Its exquisite form, monolithic as it is, is temporary, The neck arches over the water without a keystone, snout in the distance resting. The undulating scales of its shadowy flank, age like Grecian columns. The bulk of it is hidden, like a sleeping volcano, feet perhaps seeking the very core of the planet. One day it will be something else, and further ahead, like all of us, it will become what it was, its constituent parts, molecules floating in the dark, waiting upon ripples of gravitational forces, preparing to become, once more. Rebecca Dempsey Rebecca Dempsey’s recent work has featured in Shot Glass Journal, Ink Pantry and Elsewhere Journal. Rebecca lives in Melbourne, Australia, and can be found at WritingBec.com ** Letter to the Heart of a Man who Still Mourns a Revoked Future I can love you better than she can, can chip and chisel the pockets of cornflower into ice blue. Something shipwrecked in this mirage of dark water—a queen with her king, their castle not too far behind them? And maybe it’s foot soldiers beside them? “Or maybe they’re ghosts,” you seethe. With all the fluting and fillets of your heart, I still can love you. Better than she can, I can drown and never run empty. Storm your storm clouds and I’ll fit you into every ripple of me. Build a distant archway and I’ll tongue what little salt there is into atrium. Ahja Fox Footnote: In architecture, an atrium is a large open-air or skylight-covered space surrounded by a building. Atria were a common feature in Ancient Roman dwellings, providing light and ventilation to the interior. Wikipedia 2. An atrium is a chamber of the heart that receives blood from the veins and forces it by muscular contraction into a ventricle. Ahja Fox is a Colorado native who has editorial, hosting, and teaching experience through Art of Storytelling, Poetix University, Copper Nickel, and Homology Lit. She has been published in various online and print journals like Five:2:One, LEVELER, Driftwood Press, Okay Donkey, SWWIM and more (including various anthologies). Nominated by several journals for Best of the Net and The Pushcart Prize, Ahja has finally gotten up the nerve to draft two poetry manuscripts. ** mama calved growlers & bergy bits borne of polar ice covert ship wreckers stealthy as love Donna-Lee Smith Donna-Lee Smith is a writer in Montreal, Canada. ** Lot’s Wife The story of looking back is a long one. Here, ice. Ice in the shape of your once-woman’s face. Your face is looking back, hair a cascade of frozen shape. Ice like cats’ mouths dipped, or pillars from some lost city. Water the colour of dreams and beneath, your body, eroded by salt and water. The stories of fleeing are long too, painful and happening – In flight, your man ahead, you look up for a moment to the darkening sky, drop, at your feet, the last loaf of bread, which you grabbed, wrapped in paper, shoved in your bag as you ran out of the house, everything else left – hairbrush, his good shoes, your wedding portrait – and up the hill and away. Over time, salt becomes ice, the sharp edges of your dark hair soften, cheekbones more chiseled by wind. Shadows blue in the shade. What was land is now water and ice now water as humans flee the world they have meted out. The story of looking back – Did you look back, she asks herself again, her thoughts clouds, cold, a loose knot, and mist. Or did you merely stop, bend to retrieve the bread, let your hair fall forward. You know, she tells herself, as she replays the moment again and again, sees her own eyes slide through the veil of hair to look at tortured bodies, the fine pillars of the city become bone and ice. You looked and as you flung your hair aside to hide your looking, became solid, granular, blood unmade, a pillar. Thoughts ripple through her, her body and hair merge to water. She knows there is little left of her or the city. Pillars that will melt in this great human reckoning. Iced canopy of hair frozen to the deep, the deep flawed and breaking. Yvonne Blomer Yvonne Blomer (she/her) lives in Victoria, BC on Lək̓ʷəŋən territory. The Last Show on Earth, her fifth book of poetry was published with Caitlin Press in 2022. She was Victoria’s fourth poet laureate. www.yvonneblomer.com ** Endgame She will never speak again. As the light fades, she juts her chin forward sphinx-like, glares out of the window at the gathering night. Her daughters attempt to plump up her crumpled pillow; she lashes out without warning, then freezes, gasps; a slow, shallow sigh. They look on, feeling helpless, desperate to act; whispering to her, they recall their summers of sea pinks and cockles when she would lead them from the farm, down the field to the shore for a picnic; those times when they paddled at high tide. Out of their phones, they summon a pale, monochrome image: sandcastles, buckets, spades, seaweed, seagulls, mud flats, wet feet. In this picture, they are squinting; the sun must have been in their eyes though she is laughing as she holds onto them; they lean towards her, grinning. She stirs in the bed, glances at the photo; her fingers start to scratch and pick at scabs, pinch loose skin; she scowls, pulling at her nightdress. They stroke her hand; it is paper-thin, ice-cube cold. She tugs herself free, makes a weak fist, shifts her body to face the darkening sky, senses waves crashing over her…. In silence, they wait. Dorothy Burrows Based in the United Kingdom, Dorothy Burrows enjoys writing flash fiction, short plays and poetry. Her fiction has been published in various journals, including The Ekphrastic Review. She tweets: @rambling_dot ** Frustration In one life, I am waking to the dull ebb & flow of time, dragging my fingertips along the evenly corrugated walls in a heat-less home. In another, the sky thunders w/ promise & a roiling wind buffets each balustrade of my own making w/ lust, envy & artistry. I am awake & I am dreaming. I suppose I am alive. The floor is littered w/ chances & I’ll let myself drown before I walk through that door. Caitlin M.S. Buxbaum Caitlin M.S. Buxbaum is a writer and teacher from Wasilla, Alaska. She currently serves as CEO of Red Sweater Press, President of Alaska Writers Guild, and Editor-in-Chief of The Poets' Touchstone, a publication of the Poetry Society of New Hampshire. Learn more about her and read more of her work at caitbuxbaum.com. ** Antarctica, Awakening I tell you I could speak again: whatever returns from oblivion returns to find a voice. “The Wild Iris” by Louise Gluck I’ve been numb so long buried beneath a terrible weight lost to myself scoured simple as the moon * sensations nearly imperceptible a wash of warmth * shifts meltwater this white shroud frays I slough sheets of ice into the black sea * something trembles cracks a glacier slips my shoulder snow rosy with algae I remember a green time leafy shadows rain Marion Starling Boyer Marion Starling Boyer’s Antarctica poems are from Ice Hours, selected by Carol V. Davis for the 2021 Wheelbarrow Books Poetry Prize and is forthcoming from Michigan State University Press. Boyer is the author of four other poetry collections. A professor emeritus for Kalamazoo Valley Community College, Boyer lives in Twinsburg, Ohio and leads workshops for Lit Cleveland and Lit Youngstown. ** One Day It was the hot pink in apricot, Orange in lemongrass and The glacier in turquoise, Colors that mixed into the flowers As I lay in the yard behind the porch, No longer in my dream. The darkness was fading- Entering the hole, a magical abode Of families together again, Of scars cleaned, miseries forgotten. The tides that once were higher than my reach, Now settled to a peaceful stream, pristine. The time was turning immortal- Seagulls collecting from near and afar Gliding on the waters, Arriving at the shore like a plane on the sea. The cherry blossoms in wait, all the way To a sudden secret's tree. Abha Das Sarma An engineer and management consultant by profession, Abha Das Sarma enjoys writing the most. Besides having a blog of over 200 poems (http://dassarmafamily.blogspot.com), her poems have appeared in Muddy River Poetry Review, Spillwords, Verse-Virtual, Visual Verse, Sparks of Calliope, Trouvaille Review, here and elsewhere. Having spent her growing up years in small towns of northern India, she currently lives in Bengaluru. ** Departure's Girlfriend
"Down to my boat, my boat To see it off, and glad at the thought." W.S. Merwin, Departure's Girlfriend "Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice..." Robert Frost, Fire and Ice "...the poem [Fire and Ice] is a compression of Dante's Inferno...like the downward funnel of the rings of hell." John N. Serio "Oh, I've seen fire and I've seen rain I've seen sunny days I thought would never end I've seen lonely times I could not find a friend But I always thought I'd see you, Baby One more time again --" James Taylor, Fire and Rain The figures were frozen in a dream, statue-like the woman with her arms raised, reaching out to the man who already has one foot off the pier, on the steps -- the gang plank -- leading to a boat that would take him from the ancient world of fiction to the perplexing reality of contemporary non-fiction, illustrated by faces that could be altered, digitally, for Facebook if the story they were living had to be discontinued because things never went the right way for Departure's Girlfriend, whose anonymous identity had been doubled by an invisible twin who gives ridiculous advice -- the devil made her do it, he supposed -- sitting on his shoulder opposite the Angel who always dressed in italics for poetry, Departure's conversations with his Girlfriend when she's fictional. Non-fiction was expensive. He'd gone over budget for trips and equipment and when he'd reached out, filled with longing to the empty side of his lonely hotel bed, he heard the Devil whispering C'mon Baby, Light my fire! He assumed it was his campfire on the night they couldn't communicate by cell phone after an argument; the night he'd heard the serpent-hiss of history, and froze in fear as a black adder -- gold-gilded by his flashlight -- had wrapped its coils around his backpack in memory of Cleopatra, a statuesque shadow standing in the Greco-Roman doorway of a palace as he, a voice in his own future, tried to price boat tickets to Paradise Bay and Harbor.... Was it a dream to wake up to the ice-blue beauty of ice, fallen, a if from heaven in the shape of an archway? To see how nature, as silent as the air in Antarctica had frozen a piece of the sky, a spiritual space where one might pray or marry blue as ice torn from the hem of Madonna's robe; and blue as the eyes of Departure's Girlfriend, reflecting the ocean, filled with light when she saw him. If the ice were transformed to rock and stone by some magical act of earthly wizardry she might be waiting for him under Darwin's Arch; or become The Morrigu a tri-partite goddess, walking across the Irish Sea to Scotland's Highlands on The Giant's Causeway if she thought to leave him for the famous Finn McCool. She knew her dear Departure had never sailed away by chance because the world needed sudden fiction -- fast -- before the ice was melted by their passion. Laurie Newendorp Laurie Newendorp, often honoured by the Ekphrastic Challenges, has begun to recognize the names of others who appear, regularly, in The Ekphrastic Review. Her recent book, When Dreams Were Poems, 2020, shows, as do Caponigro's dual photographs of Antarctica, Dreaming, and Waking, how closely related are fiction and non-fiction in the artist's creative imagination. Her character, "Departure," from W.S. Merwin's poem, "Departure's Girlfriend," has made other appearances in her poetry. Once her companion in South America, this is Departure's first trip to Antarctica. ** Frigid you look different in slumber the frigid peacefulness as you rise from the ripples you rise and offer passage i see you as you were i see you as you are i see you as you are seen a gateway empty waiting for me to choose perception cold reality refreshing true neither existing without the other Sophia Ferello Sophia Ferello is a college student from Massachusetts, writing for fun while they work to attain their Bachelor's in Culinary Arts. They have never been published before, but they have been writing since they were very young and are excited to finally put their work out into the world. ** Silent Write Quiet is the night at 2:00 AM Its silence thick like jam rolling off a knife Here at my desk, by grace of chance, I sit and write… looking out black window panes in North America- no bombs in air Rise and fall, rise and fall, my breath and pen the only movement here. On another Continent men make munitions smear across the sky Flames disintegrating homes and dreams in a land of bread and music Forever silenced: mother’s voices crumble underneath burned buildings falling walls and windows Children left alone to scream in war raged bloodied streets. And then there is Antarctica… Palatial with the sun’s slow six- month rise Waking to peaceful glorious blues that sparkle in architectural patience of ice Millennia serenity…as ancient and scrolled as acanthus leaves Magnificent because here, here on this Continent no man formally resides. Susan Tenney Susan Tenney is an Award-winning director and choreographer who loves to write poetry. Her ekphrastic poem Saturday Morning Thoughts at Your Doorway Watching You Sleep was chosen by The Poet's Corner in November 2021 for their Poetry in Motion collaboration with the Page Gallery of Camden Maine and her poem Elegy for T. for their event Love Unmasked in February 2021. She recently completed her first Chapbook: Objects and Other Living Things. ** Ice That Dreamed of Life As Soil (to John Paul Caponigro Regarding Antarctica Dreaming) Illusion formed to dupe the eye of intellect it leads awry, is image, though of sight unseen, you've wrought as ruse that you convene, though artificial, still as art of "is" and "isn't" to impart suggestion that the truth might lie somewhere between "Why not?" and "Why?" essential to our science quest and to our faith that fear would wrest and to the arts that mark our trail both as the pleasure and travail of moments that are left enshrined for those ahead by those behind like ice that dreamed of life as soil where limb and leaf could root and moil. Portly Bard Portly Bard: Old man. Ekphrastic fan. Prefers to craft with sole intent of verse becoming complement... ...and by such homage being lent... ideally also compliment... Ekphrastic joy comes not from praise for words but from returning gaze far more aware of fortune art becomes to eyes that fathom heart. ** This Shifting Planet Time stands to attention, poised at the foot of a Titan, its hands moving over the frozen lungs of an ancient land mass with the wheeze and rasp of the dying. I cover my eyes blindly, seared by the glacial weight of ice, its opal sheen pulsing in ribbles stained with the gloss of crackled-glaze, a ceramic, freshly cooled from kiln. For eons balance has hung solid in the cyan air its breath of cut crystal a warning before Earth’s underbelly felt its spine slacken, buckle under the sheer mass of it melting, retreating, leaving snakes of silt in its gravelled wake to reveal a single feeble reed its voice a whimper as the planet shifts. Kate Young Kate Young lives in England and has been passionate about poetry since childhood. Her poems have appeared in The Ekphrastic Review, The Poetry Village, Words for the Wild, Poetry on the Lake, Alchemy Spoon, Dreich, The Poet and Fly on the Wall. She has had poems in two Scottish Writers Centre chapbooks. Her work has also featured in the anthologies Places of Poetry and Write Out Loud. Her pamphlet A Spark in the Darkness is due to be published by Hedgehog Press. Find her on Twitter @Kateyoung12p ** The Fateful Tale of Capt. Robert Falcon Scott, RN --conjured by the art of John Paul Caponigro: Antarctica Waking / Dreaming Twin photos, blue as the Antarctic Sea, as if a Greco-Roman architect designed, awake or dreaming, what we see. They brought to mind how Nature tossed and wrecked adventurers, as if a toss of dice. The quest for glory was its own defect. Dante knew that Hell is cased in ice, as cold would kill a frozen man and dog. Even ships were shattered in this vice. We have their charts and finely scripted log for places where a misstep or a fall would blanket with a trace-erasing fog. On Exeter Cathedral's silent wall the sister placed the sledging flag of Scott who died in one last gamble for it all. to do not what he willed but what he ought, while guessing how this fatal trek might close, barely failing at the goal he sought. Will we freeze to death or mount a pyre, a poet asked; but when each breath just froze, did he still think his world would end in fire? R.W.Rhodes R.W.Rhodes taught global religions for many years at Kenyon College. His poetry and translations have appeared in a number of literary journals, online and in print. While visiting Exeter Cathedral in England, he saw the sledging flag from Capt. Robert Falcon Scott's first exploration of the Antarctic. The photo and digitally altered twin of Antarctic ice done by John Paul Caponigro, opened up dream-like memories of that experience for him.
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