I recognise the purr of the trucks as they pull in and then away. Ordering the books has become a bit of a ritual, a way of receiving this distant but vivid place, a way to govern its presence by summoning them one or two at a time, the books that tend to have a penguin or a berg or a ghost-ship on the cover. The problem with this sort of exploration, aside from the way that it can communicate only certain aspects of the experience of being there, is that the books tend to hew to the periphery, which is generally where the animals and plants are, because how, really, do you write a book about a blank? The periphery is cold enough but almost baroque with detail: lichens and mosses and stout flowers, cacophonous birds and seals, and icebergs that tour the seas like cruise ships, except bigger (much bigger). There is an algae that turns the snow pink and a fish with white blood. The coastal water’s comparative warmth seeps into the cracks in the ice, causing its disintegration, frills the berg bottoms with enough sustenance for creatures to dwell, while the entire collection of pack ice turns in ancient rotations propelled by ocean currents.
