Antarctica by Julian Baslyk
Antarctica - Artistic Interpretation, A Painter’s Perspective
Part 1
A picture, snow, and storm
A vastness never visited, a traveling never taken
A silence never heard, a pondering never placed
A blankness, never painted, a paper, never drawn
The wind never inhaled, and the land, never have I walked
Never seen, felt, or heard
Just a large, alienated
And a vast, vacant
Mountains, canyons and cliffs
The whiteness spread without me, its teaching never within me
A land, or an ice that floats upon the colossal sea?
A danger that succumbs my forever curiosity
And it can harm, my journeys then forgotten
It will lure me upon my interests and intrigue
But I mustn’t be tackled by waves, I mustn’t be frozen by ice
I mustn’t be hungry by its drought, I mustn’t be hurled by its breeze
I must fight it, I must live, I must endure its endless engagement
I must paint over the blankness, my colours made abundant
I must turn it green…
I must render it beautiful, the blankness forgotten
The whiteness removed by my fabulous forms, my ingenious designs
My tones and my tints, my hues, my blues, my brightness
For the emptiness, I will empty it
And the dryness, I will moisturize it
I will turn the continent into a creation
A beauty brought by my artistry, and these arrangements
My painting to perform, my casting to configure it
My being to bleed on it, a blessing to begin
And with a discovery of the waves, I will welcome
With a necessity to explore, I will reason
I will stretch myself onto this plane
I will reach for the risk
I will morph it, I will mutate
It will grow, I will grasp
And the cold, it will be conquered
Part 2
So my journey begins, to Antarctica, to a blankness
I will get there upon my greatness, my fondness
My curiosity must be met, my interest must be gotten
The cold, the creeps of a land forgotten
To there I will rest upon the lifeless lands
As an artist I shall dwell, I shall ring its bell, and rupture its shell
For I only paint upon the blank, I only add upon the empty
I only aim to discover, to remove the cover for the sleeping
I will rest upon the extremities, I go there to grow
I will awake upon the cold, and upon the baron
I will sail upon the creeping waters, and the storms for reason
But I am not a penguin, or walrus, or seal
I am human, with an aim to create
And to live there, is to discover an innate
The land so large, ready for my imprint, my impressions
And if my canvas is this continent, my potency, for progression
My studio is this world, my paintbrush, the life
My paint, the growth, my pencil, the constructs
The mountains are my challenges, to climb the cliffs will be successes
And I must ascend them, or fall towards injury
I must conquer this land, or die for this stand
I must perform, I must predict, I must add, remove a bland
For creativity rests within, it must be shown to the world
I must not be changed, I must not be reconfigured
I must be awake as an artist, and be sleeping as a body
And if the canvas is blank, what would I make?
One only realizes by traveling, the universe is vast, and in multiples
For there is much to discover, as a person to fall
And the large is only by relativity, the world so small
Antarctica, Antarctica
What is there? I do not know
I must saturate into the icy snow, the blankness made beautiful
Now I must depart, a journey so crucial
Part 3
Slow and rigid, I trek the lifeless terrains
For many miles, I slide upon the icy remains
I ride the mountains, so fierce, so frozen
I walk this continent, I will grasp its growing, its grieving
I search through its crevices, I wander amongst its creatures
I travel to train myself, Antarctica, Antarctica
It will groom me from its pits, it will govern me from its pieces
Its stresses I shall succumb, I shall become
As I journey across its extremity, I am undone
I am unraveled, I am squashed, I am drained
It is so large and so mysterious, I am so small and well-defined
It refines me by a risk, it replies to me by peril, and its pressure
I, trapped in the center, nothing around me, snow and ice
No food to grow, no plants, people, or platforms
Nothing at all, why have I come, why have I come?
I have come to paint, I have come to create
I have come to blend myself, and spread across the blankness
I have come to journey, I have come to colour it, to capture
For there is nothing before colour, but emptiness
And I bring with me my brushes, I bring with me a beauty
I will create upon the dire, I will control it, I will command
It may freeze me now, but I bring forth my fortune, my freedom
I bring forth my greens, my blues, my spectacular hues, these are my truths
I will brighten the ice, I will melt the snow, I will show, I will show
For I always render upon a blank, I always blend upon a whiteness
And if my canvas was large like a continent, what would I make?
For only upon the colours do we perceive, only upon the empty do we weave
And the canvas is so empty, I choose to engage it
I choose to enjoy it, I choose to uphold it
To spread myself out, and grow from this endeavor
And the walls, usually white, I shall put myself upon them
I shall throw myself into these boundaries
I shall create within the intangible, I shall create within the desirable
For Antarctica is so plain, I bring to it myself, I bring to it a health
And if it was a green, it would be seen, it would be teamed
But now, just the ice, now, just its plight
Part 4
And so from the snow, I will prevail
Towards a space away from here, I set sail
The cold now experienced, the ice, how I have sensed it
But every travel ends, every journey suspends
Antarctica, I depart it, and a warmth, I shall conduct it
I have visited a blank, and from this I have created
I have gone where I had not been, I have seen what I had not sensed
But, I cannot live amongst its boundaries, I cannot exist within its truths
It is much too dire for my flesh, I cannot be there in my bests
So I depart to where the land is green, where the sun is seen
Myself has changed, and this is what I hoped
No longer a blank, in my mind's eye, Antarctica, Antarctica
And so large does it linger, but I must be there no longer
I must be amongst the forests, and lakes, and valleys
I must be amongst the birds, I must be amongst the herds
Life must be me, and in Antarctica so little
It is a world far away, and now I have visited that way
I return and I will stay, for I cannot be frozen
I must be heated, I must be treated
I must be flown to where the waters flow
Where there is no ice, no more ice, no more ice
It must be melted, and the lakes made large
And life, must be maintained by a star
For a blankness is something cold, and the colours must here be told
This is the Earth, this is my birthing
These are the jungles, and the rivers, for these reasons I am ready
These are the gardens, this is the greatness
For blankness, it is a weakness
I must create upon it, and become the strongest
Antarctica, Antarctica
It has taught me all about the lifeless
And, upon its heights, oh, how I am so flightless
Copyright by Julian Baslyk