Posts
Did you know what this would look like, this expanse of Antarctica? They told you it was big. They told you it was cold. They told you, over and over, that there is nothing there! Were you expecting neighbors? Someone from the next section over to welcome you with an apple pie?
There's no here here, as Gertrude Stein said of, I think, Portland, Oregon. Or was it Seattle? There's nothing here but ice and wind, and wind doesn't count because it's a force and not a thing. So there's nothing here but ice.
And more ice.
And you, a minuscule ice-breaker carving your way through the "water" part of the ice—though how you distinguish it from the "land" part of the ice is hard to fathom.
Dwarfed by your environment, you are creating a block of man-defined territory, carving out straight lines that are the proof of human interference. Those straight lines are vividly human against the rhythmic, wind-blown, natural surface. Nature's creations flow and spiral; man's creations follow straight lines.
The rigid rectangle that you are creating won't stand long against the constant assaults of the wind and snow. Before too long the rectangle will revert to what nature wants it to be: immense, huge, white, and stretching farther than the eye can even imagine.
Do you think you can win? Why did you ever agree to battle against Nature in this immense white wilderness? Take my advice, little ice breaker, and run along home.
http://www.scenesfromthejourney.blogspot.com
No comments:
Post a Comment