Dashing through the Cold

Tim Blair, at “Encyclopedia Ekphrastica” called for antarctic verses; accordingly, I dashed off the following:

Gratuitous advice

Antarctic poems
should be, like the continent,
distant, severe, cold

but not at all warm
because the Antarctic’s not

heating, I am told

by real scientists,
and weather, pacé Combet,
can’t be controlled.

Still, Antarctica,
if you ignore “researchers”,
provides manifold

rewards: that frozen,
paradoxical desert
bears sites to behold.

An Earlier Antarctic Poet Sought Solitude without a Tent

There once was a captain called Oates
who loved to make verse anecdotes:
    “in my search for a rhyme,
    well, I may be some time;
I do wish we’d brought warmer coats.”

His colleagues within held their throats,
and shook as they penned their last notes.
    “You are what?” He replied,
    “I’m just going outside...”.
At least he’s remembered in quotes.

UPDATE I (15 December):  see “IPCC’s Claim That Antarctica’s Ice Sheets Are Melting Due to Global Warming Is Found to Be Fraudulent”.

UPDATE II (16 December):  the very gallant gentleman is known for more than just one memorable quotation:

Oates has descendants:

in his greener days, he had

known a twelve-year-old.