Barely a week goes by when I don’t have a conversation about Antarctica – and it is over six months since we returned. Although I had vaguely imagined some life-changing event, no single thing stands out, and no seismic shift took place. But the vast, clear, mindless, empty cold of it all is enduring. The persistent celebrity is Ice – in all its myriad breathtaking forms. (See Powerpoint presentation and integral poem inserted below).
When I went for lunch with Adrian Litvinoff, he asked a version of the ‘life changing’ question that struck a chord; he asked, “What do you now do differently?” For some reason, this made me realise the answer – I replied, “I now know that somewhere in the world there is a place that is still. And that place is in my head – and I can go there any time I like.” Having checked this out with Adrian, the answer worked for him too. People who’ve seen the Powerpoint and the photos have glimpsed it, and have asked for copies of the photos. It has been a momentous experience which will live as long as memory. A privilege. An epiphany. Where to next??

Words at Cape Horn Albatross Monument
‘Tribute to Sailors from Days Gone By’ by Sara Vial
I am the albatross that waits for you at the end of the earth
I am the forgotten soul of the deceased sailor
Who crossed Cape Horn
From all the seas of the world.
But they did not die in the furious waves
Today they fly in my wings to eternity
In the last trough of the Antarctic winds.

And this is a poem I wrote as a paean to ICE.
Lemaire North to South
Glittering dawn, sharp alpine peaks.
Snow-washed skies, aurora streaks.
Mirror-calm, reverse-reflect,
Frozen stillness, diamond-flecked.

Ancient snowfall blizzard-smoothed
Older rockface vicious-toothed
Aeons forming icebergs glide,
Prehistoric plates collide.

Huge mangled ice-blocks bubble-rilled
Dusted with ice-flakes all fine-milled.
Free-form sculptures all wind-scrawled
Lumbering hulks become ‘golf-balled’.

Seal-strewn ice floes – shattered planes
Growlers groaning – echoing strains.
Shapes and faces fuse and weld
Spectrum testing colours meld.

Duck-egg, virgin, electric blues
Atoll reef, mesmeric hues.
Emerald, jade, viridian greens
Turquoise, myriad aquamarines.

Precise and laminated slivers.
Fissures creak and surface shivers.
Angular, jagged, jumbled, frayed,
Splintered, striated, parallel, splayed.

Marzipan folds, stiff-whipped egg-white,
Sugar-dredged with crystal light.
Pristine, bold, extravagant billows
Puffed up like bleached cotton pillows.
Doughy mounds split with cold fire.
Petrified azure crystal pyre.
Glass splinters in soft-sifted snow
Infused with turquoise spectral glow.

Brittle sheets form tilted layers
Scattered fragments, shard-light flares.
Glacial outflow fractured sheer,
Abstract splinters sapphire clear.

Shona Walton
December 2004