Antarctica

Perhaps it is needed to balance the planet: to provide     employment for penguins, or that ice in the form of     crystals calls forth tiny sleighs.     That the orange hibiscus be associated only with deepest tropics     ...plankton learn to feed Baleen whales     And iron hulks, off ships. submit to greater Masters. the elements.     Second Theories     Another supposition projects...     snowy wastes are but vapour trails of jets and tatter sails.     Sleet comes only from cannonized rain, galvanized by inclement ironmongers.     Yet a third hypothesizes frozen energy is stored in the     form of ice caps and that the lost amongst departed     souls are reborn with every powdery breath.     Ptolemy knew of a southern polar continent. Cook     and Shackelton attempted separate conquests. Ships     voyaged as early twentieth century probes amid     frozen stellar space nudging Earth's feet.     Footprints the size of muskets where left as evidence.     So were a few red flags. No oxygen bottles trailed the     ascent like those that packed Everest. Amundsen as     to Hillary across the South Sea face, yet this     Matterhorn has a logic and bedevilment all her own.     Norway and Russia claim exploration of her frigid     body. The British in the first virginal thrust     christened Queen Maud Land after a brilliant     courtship. Shades of Spencer and his Faery Queen;     the Kron Prins Olaf Coast, anyone?     Ice. South of the Antipodes. The floor of the world.     Magnificant pack to the drunken global jaw, growlers     or submerged ice packs. A cold porterhouse steak to     ward off the combattive edge, the chronic boxer's     inflamed orifice and eye    -    the nosebleed's staunchest friend.     Terra Australis Incognita, the supposed southern     continent; hoof of the Cenotaur stringing men like a     bow across nipples like raw wounds. clotted hair and     blood on a precipice for a chest.