HANSONG, TINA
Tina Hansong
Age: 13, Grade: 7
School Name: Horace Mann School, Bronx, NY
Educator: Stephanie Davidow
Category: Poetry
Ice Cream
I’ve been told Antarctica is a lonely place,
with only two hundred inhabitants,
but still I would like to travel there–
to see the snow melting from
climate change and all the fossils
scientists have frozen
for preservation over time,
unlike the coffee ice cream
I eat too quickly:
each night as I slide the carton
out from under bags of dumplings,
boxes of ice, and frozen pizza,
I wonder about the strange Antarctic foods
I’d like to try, such as Pemmican,
Bannock, and Hoosh.
If I traveled there, I’d stare up at
the midnight sun south of the Antarctic circle,
shining bright at all hours in the summer,
countering the winter darkness
like the black rocks of meteorite showers
that offset the white landscape of
the Ross Ice Shelf whose depth is
as hard to imagine as that of an unnamed canyon
in the eastern part of the continent:
a rift 1.5 times deeper than the Grand Canyon
and more than six miles wide,
far greater than the circumference
of my favorite quart of coffee ice cream
as I dip my spoon in, one long, sweet
bite after the next.