One still life shot can be a microcosm of the marvellous whole.

 

Muskeg Spring    

 

Be careful

You’ll miss it

The hints of the spring.

The blooms from the muskeg

The geese on the wing.

The vast glacial sculptures

That trickle and flee.

The lichen in colour

But nary a tree.

The wolf pups now yipping

The open Bay rolls.

The flukes of leviathan;

One looks long for those.

And sun at this mid-gray

At all kinds of hours;

Enough for the bushes and

Insects and flowers.

Who race through their cycle

In furious form,

With mercury rising

Slim chance to get warm.

And this is our country

And these are our friends

Who course through

The tundra

Beyond where land ends.

And life

Is a slim thread

That wends through

Their earth;

And shouts at

The challenge

Of death and of birth.

Of boreal curtains

That hang in the sky,

Til spring brings

The wonderful

Midnight sun nigh.

 

 

Note: Our son Jordan is a commercial airline pilot with Air Canada. He served a period of time as a charter and medevac pilot in the far North. Many were the stories of this unique and strangely beautiful land. And of the Inuit. See the feature film SNOW WALKER with Barry Pepper.