An Ice Floe Sampler

Ursus Maritimus, the Polar Bear

Tourists come and go in the hotel's lobby

where it has stood, whiter than December's

drifting snow, decade after decade in a case

thanks to Pipeline Real Estate and Jonas

Brothers Taxidermists of Seattle. It's easy

to imagine it sniffing the air for danger

or for the scent of a seal that has dropped

its guard as it might have for a moment

before the hunter's bullet stopped its heart.

Now it stand impervious to the seasons.

I watch a woman pretend to put her arm

around its shoulder as if it were the lover

she has always wanted. Her girlfriend

takes their picture. A man, red-faced from

holding in his stomach, takes their place

and hands his camera to his trophy wife.

At night, a cleaning woman pulling a cart

comes by to wet and slowly clean the glass.

-- Tom Sexton

Adrift

the fallen

sunshade

the chirp

parting

the flashwindcrackle

soon glowing

afterimage those

leaves momentary

shadows thrown

around an invisible

fire always leaving

always

here

-- Helda Harle (translated from the Swedish by the author)

White Willow

White willow

a thousand and a thousand and a thousand fish-shaped leaves

sing with their fine sough:

human being, prisoner of diversities,

concentrate on the trunk, your center,

details will clarify on their own.

-- Sirkka Selja (translated from the Finnish by Sarka Hantula)

Kheta

Kheta River tundra, my land,

Kheta River tundra, my home,

Where water and earth are mine,

Where I first found the world,

Where reindeer go to pasture,

Their pasture, our footprints,

Land also etched by sledges,

Land where every thin branch

Is another fine antler, live veins.

How can I forget? How will I live

Without land or water? I was a bird

Here, here the land gave me a son.

Mother showed me how here,

Father taught me on the water.

My tundra has eyes also, a heart,

Blood of berries, flower breath.

Kheta River tundra, my land,

Kheta River tundra, my home,

Where water and earth are mine,

Where I first found the world.

-- Maria Vagatova (Translated from the Khanty by Alexis Burykin)

Like a clock reappearing

When lover must become friend

when love must convert into friendship

when everything does not turn out altogether

we cannot contrive completely

Something has become too little

or too much

like a clock reappearing

The hands pointing to the correct time

but on the table the remains are lying

like left-overs from a party

We tidy up

without flinching

-- Roald Larsen (translated from the Norwegian by Annelise Brox Larsen)