THE INSTRUCTION OF CAPTAIN SCOTT Poem by Sarah Howe

See now
is the plateholder
quite snug? The light
is not our only
challenge. Take off
a glove then brush
your naked hand
too near the lens
and instantly a scrim
of frost descends
no mere rubbing can
remove. Recall
a brass knob will burn
unwary fingertips
like red-hot iron. Still
cold is quickly
mastered; light less so. First
insert the amber
filter: take the groove-
etched rim, like this.
For unless viewed through
a honey jar's warm
this ice strafed moon-
scape will tend
inexorably to blue. Only
now draw out
the slide. Texture, man!
D'you see it? That
play of bright white
ridge, its shadowed
underside too coy
almost to catch. Don't
release the shutter -
yet. Today the snow
seems practically
transparent, no?
Patience, Captain.
The true photographer
will in his very dreams
calculate exposures.
One perfect morning I
waited two whole hours
for a trio of cavorting
penguins to exactly
echo the mountainside
behind. Have you
checked the lens cap?
Nothing is forgotten?
The men were donning
their skins with a yawn
when at last I flung off
my ice-fringed cloth
that long-hunched gloom
like Jonah
spat out, a prophet, to the light.