Antarctica a Poem on Video

ANTARCTICA, A POEM ON VIDEO

In 1990 I staged a poetry, music and dance program in my town, Fairfield, IA, featuring and reciting 10 of my own poems with keyboard accompaniment and 30 dancers in different formations and groups, choreographed by semi-professional dancers.

In this dramatic ode, the intense cold of Antarctica is compared to the coldness of a frozen soul. As the danced poem progresses, the intrinsic warmth of places inside ourselves enjoying tropical conditions all year long is being realized, transcending geographical as well as inner boundaries we meet on our spiritual journey.

“Antarctica” was choreographed by Lynna Howard and Alice Holliday and danced by Ananda Clark, Lynna Howard and the poet Freddy Niagara Fonseca dancing to his own words. Music on keyboard composed and performed by Nathanael Zumstein.

ANTARCTICA

 

 

Cold! Cold! Totally cold! Colder than Alaska or Siberia;

Colder than the North Pole; cold like a frozen soul

You are, oh age-old Antarctica.

 

 

Measureless and empty plains with silences as white and deep as death

Descended on me there, and frost besieged the air

From rocks of ice around Antarctica.

 

 

Dark and shapeless were the nights while somewhere deep in space, the Milky Way

Rose beaming like the dawn, but never would the sun,

And I withdrew behind Antarctica.

 

 

2

 

Warm…warm…lovely warm…warmer than the Congo, Spain or India…

Warmer than a bonfire has been my old desire

For always green, tropical Trinidad.

 

 

Riverbanks and stars arise, despite the walls of ice I once evoked

Around Antarctica as I am reaching for

My always green, tropical Trinidad.

 

 

Oh, there’s the warmth of old in newfound Trinidad.

Royal are the palm trees, timeless in the evening breeze

In always green, tropical Trinidad.

 

3

 

Long ago there was a time my heart was helpless in Antarctica

With blizzards all about, where life was but a shout

Across a desolate Antarctica.

 

 

Dim is the light on snowy nights when I remember old Antarctica.

The cold is in my past because I changed at last,

And so did you, oh old Antarctica.

 

 

Warm is the light on starry nights, shining over Trinidad.

The warmth within her lovely name has now become a joyful flame

Around my soul, my age-old Trinidad.