Minus eighty degrees

I'm often drawn to write about space related themes, so when I read that the closest neighbours to the Antarctic research base are the astronauts on board the ISS, that was enough to get me started.

 This poem was inspired by text and images by Dr Alexander Kumar published
in the Guardian 2 July 2014.
Minus eighty degrees

 If humans migrate into the sea of stars,
this is how it might be one day.
The Eastern Antarctic Plateau is white
as Mars, the world's highest, driest desert.
Wintering in the research base, Concordia,
there's no way back for nine months, nothing
for a thousand kilometers, nothing closer than
the International Space Station.
As much in common with space than earth,
at night no-one locks doors and the only visitors
consist of hallucinogenic day-glow flashes from
the Aurora Australis, the Southern Lights.
Above all cold. Cold that steals your breath.
Unendurable, almost.

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