{"id":3208,"date":"2013-11-29T22:11:51","date_gmt":"2013-11-29T22:11:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=3208"},"modified":"2013-12-22T15:12:07","modified_gmt":"2013-12-22T15:12:07","slug":"jane-routh-5-poems","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=3208","title":{"rendered":"Five Poems"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

Franklin, in prospect<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Trad.<\/i> it says on the record sleeve
\nonly a century later, now truth
\nbeyond question. Such enchantment
\nin the tune. Sometimes I wonder
\nwho paid the piper.<\/p>\n

 
\n*
\n 
\nEven the name beguiles:
\nopen, bare-chested to the weather,
\nthen slender and refined.
\nWe would not have taken on so
\nhad he been a Marmaduke or Jones.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

(Slender he was not.
\nUpward of twenty stone
\nand short with it:
\nimagine that backside
\nwedged in a companionway.)<\/p>\n

 
\n*
\n 
\nInfighting, backbiting,
\nclass and preferment;
\nnepotism, economics and politics,
\nignorance and theory,
\nmonomania and manipulation:<\/p>\n

 
\neven if there were a passage, Scoresby pointed out,
\nso what?<\/i> \u2013 you\u2019d have to overwinter in the ice:
\nit would still be faster round the Cape.
\nAnd safer. But William Scoresby
\nwas a whaler. Of no account.<\/p>\n

 
\n*
\n 
\nQuestion: why so few native people along this coast,
\nand on the move? Answer: enough food only
\nfor a few and on the move. Question: what happens
\nwhen a hundred disembark and weak with hunger?
\nAnswer: how predictable it all looks now.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

On Reading the Arctic Map<\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What they charted was the nineteenth century\u2019s
\nflatteries, friendships and obligations
\n\u2013 a sea for Beaufort, an island for Banks \u2013<\/p>\n

 
\nas if rock and ice and vastness
\nhad no reality without their names;
\nas if the landscape did not already know itself.<\/p>\n

 
\nAnd if they\u2019d thought to ask, local peoples
\ncould have told them headlands, straits and seas
\nalready had their names: discords of -q and -k<\/p>\n

 
\ntheir English craws would choke on,
\nbut which might have translated as
\nthe passage where multi-year ice crushes in<\/i><\/p>\n

 
\nso Franklin would not have tried to sail
\nwest of \u201cKing William Land\u201d, but east instead
\n(where Ross had told him \u2013 guessing \u2013 land joined up)<\/p>\n

 
\non open waters local language might have called
\nthe passage of only single-winter ice <\/i>and through
\nto fame for having made it instead of not.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Franklin, ice-bound<\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Imagine ice.
\nImagine cold.
\nImagine a ship held fast all winter long.<\/p>\n

 
\nStart again: you have to remember
\nit\u2019s an Arctic winter, with no daylight.
\nHow to picture such darkness?<\/p>\n

 
\nYou have to imagine the body.
\nHammocks below decks, close quarters,
\nfeet, sweat, farts: a sort of warmth.<\/p>\n

 
\nThe grip of ice knocking on the hull.
\nCreaking \u2013 not as of timbers riding seas:
\nas of strangulation.<\/p>\n

 
\nNo one ever seems to mention
\nsanitary arrangements.
\n(Only Lowenstein, a century later, reports<\/p>\n

 
\nthe Inupiak\u2019s 50-gallon drums of slops
\nrolled out \u2013 frozen, remember, odourless \u2013 onto the ice
\nfor summer\u2019s melt to swallow whole.)<\/p>\n

 
\nYou have to imagine the tedium.
\n(Collingwood \u2013 yes, I have my favourites \u2013
\nbuilt a table for his crew of polished ice<\/p>\n

 
\nand taught them billiards:
\nthey would not miss, he said, the baize,
\nnever having known it.)<\/p>\n

 
\nMonths, dark and cold. Waiting for moons.
\nIt might even have been relief to be on watch.
\nSuppose Francis Pocock has not yet died<\/p>\n

 
\nand, staring south, thinks he makes out a flare.
\nHe\u2019s heard talk of mirage, shuts his eyes,
\nopens. Then he\u2019s sure: a bright curve<\/p>\n

 
\n\u2013 imagine the shout that goes up.
\nLight, and more tomorrow. And then full sun.
\nRelief at the return even of short days.<\/p>\n

 
\nTo be on the move. Busyness, preparation, anticipation.
\nImagine days lengthening, days
\nthe sun does not set \u2013<\/p>\n

 
\nand still the ice does not let go.
\nImagine the sun dipping again
\nbelow the horizon, and still<\/p>\n

 
\nthe ice has not let go.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Franklin, in retrospect<\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 
\nIf he\u2019d not kept to orders written by men
\nwho knew the Arctic as a drawing assembled
\non theory, guesswork and vested interest,<\/p>\n

 
\nif there hadn\u2019t been that run of harsh winters
\n(or they\u2019d not been beguiled by softer ones
\ninto thinking they knew how ice behaved),<\/p>\n

 
\nif the food cans had not been sealed with lead,
\nor if he\u2019d not suffered from what he called
\n\u2018influenza\u2019 those months before embarkation,<\/p>\n

 
\nif he\u2019d not been over-wrought by accusation
\nof \u2018petticoat government\u2019 \u2013 even if he\u2019d not married
\nLady Jane \u2013 that is, if Eleanor had lived<\/p>\n

 
\nor he\u2019d bought that estate in the country\u2026
\nO hindsight: how we can pull on any thread
\nwe fancy and make history unravel<\/p>\n

 
\nas if some small accident of circumstance
\nwere all that drove disasters. Of course not.
\nI tell you he was simply a man of his time.<\/p>\n

 
\n <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Franklin, cryogenically preserved<\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Wake up, Sir John, and shape yourself.
\nWherever they buried you, hacking
\nthe permafrost, break out: it\u2019s soft now.
\nYour passage is dark and open water.
\nAugust is gone, we\u2019re into September
\n\u2013 and still no sea ice has returned.
\nYou can open your eyes \u2013 there\u2019s no
\ndazzle, no bright-reflecting ice:
\nthe landscape\u2019s mud-coloured.<\/p>\n

 
\nIt didn\u2019t take long, what we\u2019ve done.
\nLook among moss at your feet
\n\u2013 you financed botanic gardens,
\nyou can work out what it means
\nthat young shoots are covered in blackfly.
\nThey say someone heard a robin sing
\nin Nunavat. On Baffin Island
\nwhat they call that landscape now
\nis our-friend-behaving-strangely.<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

In 2007an entirely ice-free passage opened for the first time from ocean to ocean.<\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Franklin, in prospect     Trad. it says on the record sleeve only a century later, now truth beyond question. Such enchantment in the tune. Sometimes I wonder who paid the piper.   *   Even the name beguiles: open, bare-chested to the weather, then slender and refined. We would not have taken on so […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[298,299],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\nFive Poems - The Manchester Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=3208\" \/>\n<link rel=\"next\" href=\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=3208&page=2\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Five Poems - The Manchester Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Franklin, in prospect     Trad. it says on the record sleeve only a century later, now truth beyond question. 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