Paint for them, sketch for them,
take photographs if you must,
but they'll not understand.
Try as you may to capture this place,
you know the cold will get in
because it crept into your eyes.
Cold eyes see greys, whites
and blues, then you go blind.
Here colours won't hold, with time
and the freeze, white's going blue
and blue is dissolving. No landscape
here. What ice has shown you,
won't go into paint, what it says
can't be repeated when you're seeing
with land in your eyes. Even
the illusion of people out here
won't work without ice
that burns if you touch it;
adding melt water won't suffice.
Here, says the cold, form isn't true,
its a smudge that gets lost in the grey.
Things here are simple, ice
will teach you what you can say.
Here you must relinquish your dreams,
you won't need them, for
this is the limit of vision, the
end of the eye. Take your notions
south when you go. Warm them
in layers of paint, but remember
they won't understand.
Basil Meyer
