northern climate II
by Gabriela Halas
New morning ice floats the bay, or old
fragments that calved as we blinked
the days past. The scour of stranded
crystals unfold as water resigns to stay. Once
this bay held fast as I moved the dogs across —
unsheathed the shape and shiver,
the steadfast lock of mid-winter. Now I watch
the land emit another kind of chorus,
a cacophony of flats and sharps unfamiliar
to my ears. The dogs, unable to match the measure,
fall through thinned aufeis, halt in lead —
my urging ended in spurious falsetto. Lungs work
at half capacity, the patterned inhale and
exhale of an un-patterned bay. Faithless
in a future we thought would never arrive. The water,
bewildered, as loosened methane destabilizes
what we once trusted. Lost in a seismic language, untranslatable
as a colonizer’s tongue. The dark imprint of unrequited
ground. I hear an old man speak of glacier’s gone:
will the river flow, it’s steady lilt, by rain alone? We should fear
the shoals who rock glinting bodies out of time.
In the retreat of all named matter, I hear the discord
rumble on — the fight of voices gathers. A recoil from our role
in all things large, mysterious. The dogs turn to me, huddle
in question, eyes as brown as an Arctic March. No answer
for the soft ground pressed between their toes. I unhook
each in turn, let the lead run on, while the others collect
in whimpered harmony.
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First published in The Louisville Review.
"Northern Climate II" is about being on a northern landscape and witnessing change. The body feels and conveys all in these poems.
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GABRIELA HALAS immigrated to Canada during the early 1980s, grew up in Alberta, lived in Alaska for seven years, and currently resides in British Columbia. She has published poetry in a variety of literary journals including The Antigonish Review, Cider Press Review, About Place Journal, Prairie Fire, december magazine, and The Hopper, among others; fiction in Room Magazine, Ruminate, The Hopper, and subTerrain, among others; and nonfiction in Alaska Quarterly Review, The Whitefish Review, Grain, Pilgrimage, and High Country News. She won first prize for her poetry chapbook Bloodwater Tint from Backbone Press (forthcoming). She holds an MFA from the University of British Columbia and lives and writes on Ktunaxa Nation land. gabrielahalas.org