Poems: ‘The Southern Lights at –50° Fahrenheit’ and ‘Lake Vostok’

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Edited by Dava Sobel

1. THE SOUTHERN LIGHTS AT –50° FAHRENHEIT
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—a zeitgeber

When winds were bearable, we sought bliss,
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sat, admired the aurora australis
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as an escape from our blackest abyss.

We gazed up into rarefied air, apparent

and pristine in each and every echelon,
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an atmospheric phenomenon,
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photo voltaic wind collisions of protons

and electrons significant in the exosphere.

Who requires Parthenon or Beginning of Venus
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when blue lights swirl small, pink coronas kiss
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clouds, neon greens arc, deep reds stripe across
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stars. We invoke therapeutic via kinesis.

2. LAKE VOSTOK
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—a zeitgeber

Frantic contact despatched us to the Pole of Cold.
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We maneuvered gradually, sought a controlled
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solution as a result of shifting drifts in our Hägglund.

At camp, they drilled to 4,000 meters

to speak to a subglacial lake and wrangle
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accretion ice and microbe samples,
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thousands and thousands and tens of millions of a long time outdated, fragile.

Immediately after, we warmed ourselves near place heaters.

We could be on Europa, on untold
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frozen moons sort special species unfold
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the quilt of the cosmos piece blocks keep
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no bias embrace the raw edge, uncontrolled.

Author’s Observe: The rhyme scheme for this kind that I invented (primarily based on the time period “zeitgeber,” that means an exterior cue that influences the way the system is controlled by circadian rhythms or time cycles) is aaabcccbaaaa and represents three months with sunlight higher than the horizon, 1 month of twilight, three months of darkness, a person thirty day period of twilight, and 4 months of solar above the horizon.

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