Return from Antarctica

[Translated]

He can still hear it:
the glaciers rasping,
their ratcheting in the distance,
the snow-quiet.

And still he remembers
gulping unsullied freshness
to clarify his lungs,
the holy coldness blessing his skin.

He gave his heart
to that stinging brightness,
that taciturn redoubt,
that uncluttered country.

But no choice except a return
to dampness and home.
He had to turn
his back on blankness.

On so many nights
his wife asks him tentatively
to abandon the kitchen
and join her upstairs.

He loves the irregular loneliness
of each tap-drip
and it’s music to him
the refrigerator’s drone:

basso profundo
slow in the recital,
grinding sighs that call out
to his being’s every melting element.

--Ailbhe Ni Ghearbhuigh