Poems from the Polar Circles
By Ronnie J. Smith
As I confronted the many faces of the Arctic and Antarctic, spanning that diversity sometimes in a matter of minutes, I often felt thrust into breathtaking polar panorama. My experience has led me to its natural and sleeping beauty; its challenging flight that no one completely masters; its frigid shrew of the sea with its ability to resist and repel any vessel; its incredible animal kingdom which needs the extremity of the polar region for sanctuary; the love, trials of the heart, humor, and loneliness ever-present that inspire and pervade the human condition; and the courageous people who have claimed their destiny exploring an amazing wilderness.
The last pure place on earth is under pressure from a civilization that doesn’t understand its fragility, its beauty, and is so removed that the same civilization will never know what was lost once it’s gone. My experience and work at both Poles was a gift to me. It was grueling effort at times, but gave my life rhapsody when understood in a planetary context. The hope is to raise an awareness for those who have never seen, and likely will never have the opportunity to see, the chaste beauty choreographing what only appears as a limitless polar domain; a domain vulnerable and rare.
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