The quivering deck,
as I stood on the quivering deck,
as if muscle tense in fear before the
will of the twisting, grinding ice flows,
stretching, unbroken to the horizon,
the ice
from the horizon to here,
from here,
relentless and remorseless.
Out of whose womb came the ice,
and the hoary frost of heaven,
who hath gendered it?
The waters are hid as with a stone,
and the face of the deep is frozen.
Pressure tracing borders from within,
features flow and collide.
I leave this stupendous,
irresistible majesty to reform the face of the ice,
a merciless
flowing Antarctic geography.
We cross the ice to where?
