Stark

After Plate No. 140 by Johanna Goodman

Iridescent stars

indigo sky

milky moon

snapshot frozen in time

sky stretched over snow

pulled stark across space �"

winter’s painted canvas

while caribou tracks dot the earth

snowy owls, heard, not seen, and

wind whistling through the valley �"

both voice our own question: Whooo?

this vast Alaskan landscape

this Inuit in ice

their tales untold

their identity one

neither forthcoming

both ambivalent.