Latitudes

I know a story that water can't penetrate:
at the end of the world
the Emperor Penguin balances
his egg through winter
on top of his feet.
His bill is lilac. He doesn't have
a nest. The polar latitude is always
shifting. Sunset is the green of trees.
There are no trees. Mountains float.
There is no effort, no dust.
Everything that turns, turns left
and death is a matter of degrees.
Blizzards fall upon blizzards of the same snow.
The sky is clairvoyant, a mirror. A false sun
rises, rises again, again sun, triple suns -
the sky is singing as whales sing, folding
purple, roseate, a fire spreading.

Physics. Simple physics. To the north,
anti-cyclones, tempests, the oceanic whir;
south, and there is still south, a wall of blueness,
unscalable peaks, crevasses, flesh-eating seals.
Expect no dog sleds bringing in supplies.
Faith is the fulcrum on which ice turns.

Barbara Helfgott Hyett