The Arctic

Across the tundra the caribou are on the move,
Golden plovers’ eggs glow in their nests with eerie light,
Snowy owls drift like smoke at evening.

Sunlight burns like phosphorus on your cheekbones.
Caribou prance across the river, kicking up
Fanfares of crystals across the vesperal sun.

The dustless air is supernaturally clear,
Edges sharp enough to cut your bones.
Slowly you begin to notice the details;
Here and there, spots of brilliant red, orange, green,
Among the monotone browns of the tundra.
Always the sense of impending events
Tantalizes in the vastness.

Occasionally, you stumble on some isolated sign:
Animal tracks, owls’ castings, a patch
Of barren ground willow nibbled by hares…
Sandpipers scatter before you, screaming in Inuit.
In a creek somewhere you might find a mammoth tusk,
Or a cryptic ring of stones, undisturbed,
Laid out by a hunter thousands of years ago
To hold down the edge of his tent.

Enormous eyes of a solitary seal,
Dark brown, glistening in a grey feline head,
Motionless, surfacing in absolute still,
Out at the edge of the world.

Fogs and snow showers come and go.
The head of a polar bear glides across black glass;
Suddenly, in a single majestic motion,
He clambers up onto a floe and shakes
Off a whirlwind halo, then flows away
Into the whiteness, part of the sunlight and ice,
Only the subtlest hints of lemon and apricot yellow,
Of cream buffs and straw whites,
Betraying his fur in the snow.

Plosive gurgling in the silence,
Warm mist, then the sudden white tip
Of a tusk spirals out of the water,
Among the ice floes. A narwhal,
Bemused eyes, tapering grey body,
Marbled skin taking on variegated hues,
From deep sea green to ethereal blue,
Floats peacefully, all strength, grace and knowledge,
Composed and alert in his waking dream.
Beneath the silence the sea is all sounds;
Crackles and moans, booms, barks and yelps,
And the singing of whales in celestial chorus,
All clicks, trills, tones and harmonics,
Whisper of shifting sediment on the sea floor,
Grinding ice floes’ whine and roar.

Snow geese fly against stormy sky,
White against black in the mind.
Colliding with a headwind in unison,
Gently they fall to earth in their thousands
In graceful parabolas, then rise again like smoke,
In great swirling currents, higher and wider
Than the swooning eye can compass.
One curved sweep of ten thousand threads
Through the spaces in an oncoming flock;
Beyond and beyond, vast lattices intermesh
Until the whole sky is a limitless blur.
At night their high-pitched barking swells;
Single cries coalesce into a rousing cheer
That rises, rises, the falls away,
While storm clouds scud across the moon.

Eerie drift and suspension of time;
Rhythms, patterns, the energy coursing through it all;
Silent arrival of a herd of caribou;
Sudden ferocious surge of a placid iceberg;
Pistol-cracks on the river in spring.
In the pure light you can hold the whole story
Of man, like a stone in the hand,
The comings and goings, the breathing in and out…
This place has its own intricate algebra.
Here, death is the mother of all.

Icebergs, monastic creatures of light,
Whose beauty is a kind of terror:
Self-absorbed, they drift in a kef of tints and tones,
Pocked and faceted, abraded and streaked,
Flushed with blues and greens.
At twilight they take on the sun’s dying beauty;
Rose, reddish yellow, watered purple, soft pink.

First sunrise of spring, carmine and red,
Fading to crimsons, yellows and saffrons,
Shining through washes of rose and salmon,
Pale cyan, apricot, indigo.
The weird air conjures coronas and fata morganas;
Beauty and madness merge, singing. Evanescence wins.
We are angels of the aurora borealis,
Rippling translucencies, all dancing colours,
The teasing wonder of the universe at play.