In Praise of Entropy
In Antarctica’s Dry Valleys, seals lie far
from the shore they’d wandered from,
meat gone to jerky, hide to leather.
Outside Scott’s hut at Cape Evans
a mummified husky dog lies, teeth bared,
the leather collar still around its neck.
Inside the hut: a fork on the table,
unrusted. Pages no silverfish or mice will find.
Everything as it was left.
What terror in the cryogenics
of this place, the stasis.
I’ve lost countless keepsakes—jackknives,
rabbits feet, desperate notes
written in young love. Do we long to see
our pushed-away meals still on the table,
lost tempers still in the air?
This is why we gape:
that we might return to a world
which lets us forget what we’ve abandoned.
