This poem – a well made villanelle – turned up on my Facebook feed this morning. It caught my attention in part because I had recently reread Beryl Bainbridge's The Birthday Boys, her brilliant novel telling the story of Scott's Antarctic expedition from the very different perspectives of Taff Evans, Wilson, Scott, 'Birdie' Bowers and Captain Lawrence 'Titus' Oates, whose last words as he walked out to certain death in the blizzard launch the poem...
Antarctica
by Derek Mahon
‘I am just going outside and may be some time.’
The others nod, pretending not to know.
At the heart of the ridiculous, the sublime.
He leaves them reading and begins to climb,
Goading his ghost into the howling snow;
He is just going outside and may be some time.
The tent recedes beneath its crust of rime
And frostbite is replaced by vertigo:
At the heart of the ridiculous, the sublime.
Need we consider it some sort of crime,
This numb self-sacrifice of the weakest? No,
He is just going outside and may be some time
In fact, for ever. Solitary enzyme,
Though the night yield no glimmer there will glow,
At the heart of the ridiculous, the sublime.
He takes leave of the earthly pantomime
Quietly, knowing it is time to go.
'I am just going outside and may be some time.’
At the heart of the ridiculous, the sublime.
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