Tuesday Poem - Thin Ice

Step

out

onto

white

not

as

a

body

bearing

any

weight

but

as

a

feather

might

think

of

ink

in

a

quill

drawing

a

cantata

out

of

light.

Today's poem comes to you from Hobart, Tasmania where I'm attending the Antarctic Visions conference. It is wonderful to be here and immersed for a time in 'all things Antarctic'.

Thin Ice speaks to my experience of having to negotiate a safe passage across the sea ice at Explorers Cove. Towards the end of the summer, the ice begins to thaw and traversing it becomes fairly treacherous; one has to step lightly whilst listening to every footfall. The poem also references creative processes and the sometimes breath-holding experience of approaching the blank page.

Where there is ice, there is music - CB 2007 Pastel on paper.

Serendipitously, my conf. presentation is this afternoon. I'll be showing my short film, Hidden Depths - Poetry for Science (which I hope to be able to upload to Youtube one day soon) and an adjunct paper on ArtScience collaboration. When I woke this morning, I thought 'how wonderful that my 'poetry for science' film has been allocated a Tuesday slot in the programme. . . ' I can see myself mentioning our Tuesday Poem initiative to the good folk in the audience!

Click here for more Tuesday poems.

Dangerous spontaneity

Hmmm. Well, nothing may come of this morning's unanticipated madness, but I seized the moment and submitted abstracts to two conferences - the first goes under the heading Antarctic Visions: Cultural Perspectives on the Southern Continent and takes place in Tasmania at the end of June. The second (this is the one that's really taken me by surprise) is Oslo's International Polar Year (IPY) Science Conference (from what I can see, the design of the host building is based on the anatomy of icebergs and is quite beautiful).  

The submission date for Oslo was 20 January (yesterday's date) and - as seems so often to happen with me - I only found out about it at 10.00 this morning. 

The fact the globe is round is incredibly helpful at times like these. In this instance, it meant that 10.00AM on 21st in NZ was still hours before midnight the day before in Norway. It's all quite weird, really. Anyway, I rolled up my sleeves and pulled out the stops and when I finally pushed the Send key on my lapdog*, it was 12.20AM in Oslo (twenty minutes post-deadline). I was pleasantly surprised when the forgiving conference computer responded within seconds with a very polite Thank You for your submission followed by an email with the reassurance, Your abstract is in our system. Whew. I might just have made it...  

Being 'in the system' doesn't necessarily mean anything in terms of whether or not you actually end up going, of course. I'm not attached to any particular outcome but will admit that my fingers and toes are loosely crossed. Programme headings for both conferences are enticing and there are many reasons why I'd really love to participate.  

Invest wholeheartedly. Detach fully. This seems to be the only way to approach things these days. 

As a poet friend once suggested 'it's not difficult but it's not easy either.'   

*Thanks for the pet name, Pen