Winter 1995

And eventually the lines go silent, no bits or bytes
of news on winter or its song of waiting. If the heart
can hibernate why not the mind also?
How many albatross span a globe, how many icebergs
bridge an ocean? How thick is Antarctica, how many
penguin-backs does it take to break a polar gale?
Today I study the coefficients of ecstasy, happiness,
togetherness … try to remember the instructions for
microwaving frozen soup: first warm feet and hands, apply
chocolate to the cave of the voice, recall the brain’s
capacity (full out) is 10 to the 17, total knowledge 10 to the
10 to the 123. Release 1.5 mb of wit (spontaneous). Sit.
Straight up.
Then enter ‘soup’ twice or thrice, download to create a
(spontaneous) dancing scene upon the still
thawing golf course at Whakapapa,
(exactly 1000 metres up that steaming mountain)
with a silk moon hanging over Ngauruhoe
dying to be inflated.