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A Poem by Ookpik
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VR4nufTN3S0&ab_channel=OmarErnestoCaneo

"
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It is beautiful there -
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Resolute, and dangerous, and broken,
.
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But beautiful none the less.
.
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I have memories that're as mundane as any other,
.
Memories of classrooms, of a childhood home,
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Of furniture, and television, fear factor and survivor-man.
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But then I have memories that're so vividly outside the norm,
.
That it's hard to put them into words.
.
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Blizzards, whiteouts that'd last for days;
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Tundra cabins and the daunting expanse of the open arctic;
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Sea-ice, owls, foxes, tern;
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Caribou and char;
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Musk oxen and bears;
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Rushing rivers, rifles and
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Christ, the sunsets...
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There aren't really any other sunsets like those.
.
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I always say that Nunavut rests at the very edge of the world
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And that you feel closer to the heavens 
.
In a place that's as flattened out as the horizon line.
.
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And it's true.
.
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Aura borealis, the swiveling nightlight of solar flare,
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It can loom so close
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That the Inuit created myths to justify its being there.
.
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I remember coming back from land trips - 
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You're so crusted up and cold, tundra moss works its way into your boots
.
And frost-bite draws these lines about the edges of your goggles -
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But I remember seeing the way that the northern lights
.
Used to play against the vertical beams
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Resonating from the headlamps of ski-doos, of bombardier b-7s,
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And the way that they'd all dance upon the silhouette of the town.
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When you're coming back, after four or five days,
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Jesus, there's no other feeling like that - 
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Exhilaration, and relief, as your machine crawls
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Out of land trails, onto open roads
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And the tires rev up and the cold wind blasts about your ears...
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There's nothing else I've ever felt like that feeling,
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Nothing else that can compare.
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And for the last few years, all I've ever done, I've done
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Knowing that it's what I'd be taking with me 
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When I finally get to go back.
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© 2021 Ookpik


Author's Note

Ookpik
(memoir - non-fiction)

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Added on December 5, 2021
Last Updated on December 5, 2021

Author

Ookpik
Ookpik

Yukon Territory, Canada



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