The Thursday Poem: Erebus Voices by Bill Manhire
Mt Erebus, Antarctica (Photo: Getty Images)
On the 40th anniversary of the Erebus disaster, a poem by Bill Manhire.
Erebus Voices
The Mountain
I am here beside my brother, Terror.
I am the place of human error.
I am beauty and cloud, and I am sorrow;
I am tears which you will weep tomorrow.
I am the sky and the exhausting gale.
I am the place of ice. I am the debris trail.
And I am still a hand, a fingertip, a ring.
I am what there is no forgetting.
I am the one with truly broken heart.
I watched them fall, and freeze, and break apart.
The Dead
We fell.
Yet we were loved and we are lifted.
We froze.
Yet we were loved and we are warm.
We broke apart.
Yet we are here and we are whole.
from Lifted (VUP, 2005)
Bill Manhire
Bill Manhire is the founder of the International Institute of Modern Letters writing programme at Victoria University of Wellington. His most recent books are Some Things to Place in a Coffin (VUP, 2017), Tell Me My Name (VUP, 2017; riddles set to music by Norman Meehan and sung by Hannah Griffin), and Wow (VUP, 2020). Bill was born in Invercargill in 1946.
