Two Poems by Jane Rogers
Freeze Frames
after Still Life: Inside the Huts of Scott and Shackleton, photograpy by Jane Ussher
In iced light. The huts.
A windbreak of abrasive textures.
Inside: strewn tables, scientific notes,
darned clothes, fur boots worn out.
Seen from behind the darkroom’s door,
‘still life’s’ preserved by a chewed cold.
Taking in the frozen views
prying the class-conscious, the dark corners,
my eyes rest on motionless packing cases
and hung slats of chivvied shelves:
rough bunks, bedding stiffly folded –
all through this time losing colour.
Framed centre stage,
the jilted banqueting table
spoilt with expedition rations.
Hung in time, a peel of strong smells:
seal blubber, frostbitten tweeds,
pipe tobacco knocked out.
Stacked on galley shelves,
the desolate brands
of provision tins freeze-rusted.
In wide angle, glass bottles,
some stoppered poison, like Mount Erebus
with volcanic plume still breathing.
On the officer’s table, fettered in diaries,
the time gone images of sleds
hobbling through shrieking blizzards
in a clawed drag of animals and men
pursuing the ice-slow
hurry to survive.
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