drift

in his white light dreams

at Discovery Hut

Herbert Ponting meets

the Siberian ponies

he’d once photographed

on the Terra Nova

the ponies no longer flexible

refuse to wear

equine pajamas

or trap their hooves

in bamboo snowshoes

for his Royal Collection

inside the stomach of ice

the ponies more still

than life soften

the silver shadows

of Scott and his team

and turn from Herbert’s bromide

into the drift

and whiff of themselves