bands of earth
etch the transantarctic ranges
cold geological burials
we are linked through the exoskeletal —
cambrian shells coil, mineralised bodies, the trilobite
and then there is glossopteris —
the unremarkable permian tongue — (found on dead explorers)
that mapped the world’s temporality
when deciduous forests spanned continents
now dredged
fossilised sunlight fuels consumption
antarctica pours
its skin off
whorls the oceans
in the tendency of all things
to decay
to turn to disorder,
entropy feeds the system
the crust furls
rivulets reach into liquid
and with nascent strands,
find pathways to collapse
‘ANTARCTICA, ENTROPY AND FRAGILITY’ BY SOPHIE FINLAY
Sophie Finlay is a visual artist and poet from Melbourne. She has been a finalist in the John Leslie Art Prize, the Mt Buller Art Prize, and winner of the ‘She Who Inspires’ Art Prize, Walker Street Gallery. She has received a highly commended certificate in the WB Yeats Poetry Prize and her poetry is published in the anthology Shaping the Fractured Self, UWAP, Cordite and Meanjin.