Edited by Dava Sobel
1. THE SOUTHERN LIGHTS AT –50° FAHRENHEIT
—a zeitgeber
When winds were bearable, we sought bliss,
sat, admired the aurora australis
as an escape from our blackest abyss.
We gazed up into rarefied air, clear
and pristine in every echelon,
an atmospheric phenomenon,
solar wind collisions of protons
and electrons high in the exosphere.
Who needs Parthenon or Birth of Venus
when blue lights swirl low, pink coronas kiss
clouds, neon greens arc, deep reds stripe across
stars. We invoke healing through kinesis.
2. LAKE VOSTOK
—a zeitgeber
Frantic call sent us to the Pole of Cold.
We maneuvered slowly, sought a controlled
approach through shifting drifts in our Hägglund.
At camp, they drilled to 4,000 meters
to contact a subglacial lake and wrangle
accretion ice and microbe samples,
millions and millions of years old, fragile.
After, we warmed ourselves near space heaters.
We could be on Europa, on untold
frozen moons; sort unique species; unfold
the quilt of the cosmos; piece blocks; hold
no bias; embrace the raw edge, uncontrolled.
Author’s Note: The rhyme scheme for this form that I invented (based on the term “zeitgeber,” meaning an external cue that affects the way the body is regulated by circadian rhythms or time cycles) is aaabcccbaaaa and represents three months with sun above the horizon, one month of twilight, three months of darkness, one month of twilight, and four months of sun above the horizon.