Elijah Perseus Blumov

Antarctica

The tundra glows beneath a flaming sky,

as lovely and as merciless as life.

Its grandeur, which to be must be beheld,

deepens as it threatens the beholder,

subverts the very premise of its power,

and intimates a joy transcending death—

some cold, impossibly objective beauty.

Great love is hidden awful in its heart:

here, penguins flock in droves, compelled to risk

sweet life each spring to raise their half-doomed young.

A hundred daily miles to fish, return

amidst the roving seals and razor winds,

to feed the chicks whom, grown, they’ll never see,

yet for a season are their only world.

And shall you not demand, you human souls,

your love be just as fierce, without reward

in working through your frigid world of days?

From Chaos, Nature howls its will to order

in minds that in their aims are more sublime

than any cold sublime they rail against.

Elijah Perseus Blumov is a poet and the host of the poetry analysis podcast, Versecraft. His poems have been published or are forthcoming in publications such as Birmingham Poetry Review, Literary Matters, The Alabama Literary Review, Think Journal, and others. He lives in Chicago.