Two Hundred Years

Two Hundred Years

I have swam beneath the ice for two hundred winters
watched two hundred summer suns
shine upon this turbulent sea
saw your kin upon the shore
stepping gently, leaving only footprints
first, then wooden paddle strokes
soon rumbles and streaks in the sky

I have seen your rise
rapid as the moonlight spread across
a tundra plain, and now watch
while the moon-set makes ready
remembering how two hundred years
you watched for my spout
saw hope in the mist
made my grandmother into corsets
carved my mother for a mangled
meal for the bottom crawlers with
war weapons, steel whales
with your men sealed
screaming inside

some of your kind believe we
wield the ability to hear those
thoughts in your head, your actions
are already gale force, only if you listened
long enough at the ocean's edge
everything would crystalize
clear, and two hundred years
you would see from sea




(Poem #1 for the National Poetry Month Challenge by Don Rearden. Here the imagined life of a bowhead whale, the subject of a new novel I'm working on tentatively titled Whale Road.)

Lost in the Flash

Lost in a Flash

the pen is only mightier
when the sword hangs
upon a wall
an ornament of old
object of inspiration
for fantasy
blood on the page
imagined and mere metaphor
for adventure and dragons
to slay and the knights
in their armor on horses
not stampeding masses
of terror and childhood
lost in the flash of
kitchen knives
flourished like swords
in a place meant
only for mighty pens





[Poem #9 for National Poetry Month --- a poem a day. Today's poem my response to the horrific school stabbing in Murrysville, Penn.]

Tundra Tapeworm

Know what river this is? If so. You're infected.

like a tapeworm
these rivers attach
themselves to your insides

when you can peer out
from your exit row
at 20,000 feet and know
one bend from the next

you are infected

these twists and turns
burned into your brain
the arteries and veins
of your life

there is no cure
for thismalady
no stick to wrap the worm
and twist it from your guts
a half turn a day forever





[Day 11 of my poem a day marathon for National Poetry month.]

Blue Berry Blue

Blue Berry Blue

a white Styrofoam™ cup
filled to the rim with tundra
blue berries
just picked, the skin
of each a light soft blue,
and just beneath the surface
a deeper blue, a darkness

not unlike the bruises
often found on the very
Alaskan women who pick
these sweet berries
their numbers, like the contents
in the cup, beyond count

and our leaders argue over the oil
focused only on filling the pipeline
with the darkness
needed to manufacture the cup
and they continue
to ignore the contents



[DAY 5 --- of my poem a day for National Poetry month.]

A Loving Unkindness

Building Materials (Photo by Don Rearden 2013)

A Loving Unkindness


last year I doubted your choice
for a home
a Seuss-like spruce
spindly and impossibly tall
unprotected from the williwaw winds
that whip and turn trees
in this valley
into toothpicks

the stickhouse endured, your loving unkindness
survived, narrowly
one of your coal black youth
flew like Davinci's craft
busted a leg, landing instead
at the avian hospital,
thanks to a human neighbor

now you are back. Rebuilding.
flight after flight, with just
the right branch of hemlock or birch
you work together throughout the day
day after day, crafting a home
built to survive hurricane gusts
you prepare for new lives
eggs, then hungry mouths
open toward the sky, waiting

and I will not doubt you again
as I chose this mountain valley
for my nest,
too.


[Day 3 --- of my National Poetry Month Madness. A poem a day for a month.]

Musk-Ox Stew and Mexican Beer

Ablaze along the Bering Sea Coast Photo by Seth Kantner

 Musk-Ox Stew, Mexican Beer


we made camp at the edge of the earth
amid the white bones of a whale
and the grey skeleton of an old skiff 

we collected driftwood, set ablaze with dried moss
and maybe a splash of dinosaur
wolfed down the fire warmed muskox stew
in gloved hands, sipped half slushed Tecate,
cut slices of lime with a Leatherman

the cold war sun slipped beneath the sea
a submarine bound for the gulags,

a frigid black sky followed
we gathered more sticks, more moss
hunched closer to the blaze
surrounded by waves, wind, and bears

We told stories, laughed, and spoke of nothing
and everything

as if this had always been
and would always be

then like gasoline on water,
the colors slid across the surface of the sky
ignited, and bathed the edge of the earth
in the icy light of Aurora's warmth



[This is Day 2 --- of my marathon Poem a Day for National Poetry Month.]