In scant moments, in a light shift
I still fail to notice. There are
No trees taller than an inch,
No posts to chop the horizontal
Into bits. Here, every glance

Receives a semi-circle of a
Skyline that has not changed since first
The world was cast, and these ridges have
The strength to change me into who
I've been since time first intervened.

It is difficult to understand
How this place, which belongs
To time before all life, can nurture
Life, even when an Arctic
Hare lops by, or you see the hamlet

Arctic Bay, nestled here for
Three thousand years, or hear of
Low stone walls, much further north
On Ellesmere Island, that were stacked
Five thousand years ago to foil

The caribou. This arc of time
Evaporates as you tread
Upon this new-made Earth presented
Out of nowhere, as each hill
And rock bespeaks eternity.

And then the sun. A day that does
Not end for months, as the constant
Light cradles the sun that circles,
And surrounds, repeats its daily
Round, five hands high at noon,

And two at midnight, dipping and climbing
Secretly. It seems profoundly
Right that day should break at midnight,
And that the sun should rise atop
The world, and at the map's top end.
 

The ancient mappers shared this view,
Placing East to head their charts,
Assuming the sun rose at the top
Of their world, which is also ours.
We "orient" our maps, or "East" them

To set them straight against the world,
And if this northern sun now makes us
For ever Orientals, it seems
A fair annointing, as light and air,
Conmingled, bathe each one of us,

As we stand upon this unmoved gravel
So ancient it is new.

Returning hours later to a
Local nightfall, we marvel at
The green of vegetation, springing
From its cycles of decay,
Regeneration, and decay.

The change is so abrupt, the South
Becomes a monochrome, a blank
Beside the North where each pebble
Has its hue, and all combine in
Shifting and eternal beauty.

What connection joins the moist
And darkling land we spring from and
The bright relentless rock still sought out
By our compasses? Their claim
On each of us is unresolved

And final. To consider how
The two connect is grim, like ranking
The order and the chaos that
Inform our lives. We all pretend
To order. But see, chaos thrives.

Which is primal, dark or light?
On Earth, we tend to think that light
Will always vanquish dark, though in
The arch of space, the night makes plain
The stars. And comparing chaos

And its sister, order, we hope
That order will hold sway in us,
On Earth, and in the wider spheres.
But what if chaos is the general,
And order but the accident?
 

The endless splash of arctic gravel
Is chaos when seen close at hand,
And the jumble of the temperate climes
Provides no certainty except
That all will crumble to a close.

Creation stories hymn beginnings
That are murky, if not black.
The light divides, but does not banish
Gloom. And though we turn still sunwards
We are cradled by the dark.

Perhaps the organizing drift of
Prime experience lies candidly
Below our speech, and if the ancient
Dark have primacy, the pull
Of primal light still orients.

The elements that stitch the Earth
Frame each of us as well: decaying
Flesh and organs held in place
By the spine's enduring bone, just as the
Rock lies deep below this soil.
 

This image may be but a dream,
But we and Earth cohabitate
At least, and might claim deeper ties.
And if I feel the rock below
As constant as the cradling sun

And understand, fair Oriental,
My country as your foreign land,
I now can turn towards our common
Local light. And so I bid
Fare well, as we travel to the

Night we all must share, which we
Cannot see, but feel towards,
As each of us returns, uncertain,
And returning, marks the place
Where dogged time began to sift.