The Emperors of Ice
That feeling of flying
in a medium thicker
than mere air
that feeling of not knowing
how cold can hurt
if feathers fail, or fat thins
that feeling of seeing season
as either all dark
or all light
that feeling of hunger
suppressed for the needs
of an egg, of a chick
that feeling of fear
of the leopard seal
in a dim blue ambush
that feeling of fullness
stuffed and overstuffed
before the long ice trek
that feeling of belonging
in this howling waste –
that’s penguin feeling.
Colin Will is a Dunbar based poet and publisher. Latest collection is The Propriety of Weeding, available from Red Squirrel Press. This is his website :www.colinwill.co.uk