[Golias]

If you happen to come to the South Pole in Summer---
southern hemisphere Summer’s the season---
you’ll find an actual pole in the ice,
but running around the pole is a bummer.
If you run counter-clock wise and feel older,
running clockwise may make you feel younger,
but we who work here give this advice:
Run either way, if you like, but the reason
you feel younger or older is you’re warmer or colder,
not the direction you ran or how fast,
nor how many datelines and midnights you passed.


In response to comments and suggestions:



If you happen to come to the South Pole in Summer---
you’ll find an actual pole in the ice,
but running around the pole is a bummer.
We who work here give this advice;
If you yearn to return to a happier youth
and you run sunwise to be younger,
or run widdershins and think you are older,
as if for reward or retirement you hunger,
here’s the honest-to-goodness hope-to-die truth:
it’s only because you feel warmer or colder,
not the direction you ran or hoe fast,
nor how many datelines and midnights you passed.



*Amundsen
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[Allen Tice]

I like it. If you want you could work in some six dollar words like widdershins ("against the shine") for counter-clock wise, and sunwise for clockwise. They could give it an entirely needless mystic swing. Since I don't swing, I don't need that, and who does these days anyway?

[Golias]

Thanks, Allen, I will use those words in a later reply to see how they look...maybe also in the copy I give my geriatrician, though she may not understand them. She checks my poems to see where versifying therapy delays Parkinson in turning my brain to mush.

Wiley C.

[Golias]

If you happen to come to the South Pole in Summer---
southern hemisphere Summer’s the season---
you’ll find an actual pole in the ice,
but running around the pole is a bummer.
If you run widdershins and feel older,
running sunwise may make you feel younger,
but we who work here give this advice:
Run either way, if you like, but the reason
you feel younger or older is you’re warmer or colder,
not the direction you ran or how fast,
nor how many datelines and midnights you passed.


Better? I think so.

[Nigel Mace]

An entertaining idea - but....

I know I have not been here for several years, but I feel obliged to ask, what is this doing in a Metrical forum - let alone a 'Deep End' one?
The metre is all over the place and the overall effect is lumpy, awkward and, to me, thoroughly off-puting.

Maybe 'widershins' would make an entertaining line of development; I certainly like the idea and its eldritch associations but, for me - as metrical poetry - the form of this piece really does need sorting out.