Journal (Poetry)
11th August 2006
A landscape of pure starkness with no point
of focus to direct the squinting eye,
its whiteness overwhelming as they searched
for any signs beneath a vacant sky.
No landmarks, just the flat, relentless sprawl
of continent held rigid within curves
denoting the horizon, front and rear,
chilling through and deadening all nerves.
The vastness shrunk them, kept them feeling small
beneath the silent, awe-inspiring stare
of Nature, raw and hostile, stony-faced,
whose bitter army stalked them everywhere.
They found the bodies frozen where they fell
eight months before - a lesson in each face
and diaries too: Scott's comment voiced it all -
"Great God! (he wrote) This is an awful place."
of focus to direct the squinting eye,
its whiteness overwhelming as they searched
for any signs beneath a vacant sky.
No landmarks, just the flat, relentless sprawl
of continent held rigid within curves
denoting the horizon, front and rear,
chilling through and deadening all nerves.
The vastness shrunk them, kept them feeling small
beneath the silent, awe-inspiring stare
of Nature, raw and hostile, stony-faced,
whose bitter army stalked them everywhere.
They found the bodies frozen where they fell
eight months before - a lesson in each face
and diaries too: Scott's comment voiced it all -
"Great God! (he wrote) This is an awful place."