Christmas Card from Siple Station, Antarctica

Awake all night where no night conies 
she trasmits waves into the sky 
from sixty feet beneath snow. 
Some arc into the solar winds 

where electrons sap their strength, 
then smash into aurora borealis, 
a suicidal blaze in Trondheim. 
Others spin forever between poles. 

Empowered by electrons, the strongest 
surge on alone into the galaxy 
silent for months until they send 
strange whistles—wish you were here. 

The ocean thrusts shores into frozen tusks 
where she is the first in the world to see Christmas,
waiting in ice fog beneath the midnight sun 
for one who left and was transformed.