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.]

Weight of a Paper Warrior

A Spirit Warrior, drawn by one of the boys in Club Ki'l (Kuh-luh) afterschool clubs I've been guest presenting at here in Anchorage.

Weight of a Paper Warrior

I sit on the carpeted classroom floor
encircled
Tlingit, Haida, Aleut, Yup'ik, Inupiaq, Athabascan
city boys
I wear my Raven qaspeq
hand sewn with love by a Yup'ik friend

they close their eyes
the walls around us, and that separate
fall away
my words carry them back in time
to when they were warriors

when they fought for what they believed
to protect their families, their people
to survive

this warrior is still there, I say

in you

listen to him

these were his

a stone knife, an arrowhead, a rabbit bone charm
travel --- small hand to small hand around the circle
for some cool trinkets, for others
a weight to each I will never know

the circle breaks and they lie on sheets
of white butcher paper, draw Crayola silhouettes
then arm and illustrate 

one boy tells me:
my spirit warrior's knife 
was different and sharper
and
he said he will always 
be there when I am scared

another asks:
what did your spirit warrior
look like?

this little boy's question lingers and
I am suddenly naked



[Poem #29 for National Poetry month! www.donrearden.com  ]

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.]