Arctic Spring Lullaby

Posted on May 4, 2015 by Keely

My new favorite spot is on the riverbank by the elephant graveyard. It’s prickly with dry grass, charred by old fires, and studded with shell casings. It has a giddy breeze and the sound of water rushing by in some kind of big hurry. It has a huge slick of melting river ice that glares into the sky with blinding defiance and tips over helplessly into the clear water. The steep bank is made just right for the dangling of tired, muddy boots. I lay out there on Sunday afternoon, watching blue roll onto the sky, tasting the dust on the air and reveling in the sudden, dry earth under my shoulderblades. Sometimes, lying under a blue sky like that, in just that kind of wind, I can let my heart fly up like a kite with a long, dancing tail. That’s the happiest I know how to be.

I went down to the bank tonight just to think for a while, and to read my book and listen to water bringing the cold mountain song down like a lullaby. There are sirens in the Chandalar, luring sailors into the hills.

let me put my arms around you
(shush shush shush)
like this circle ’round the sun
(hush sh-shush)
come running to the woods, girl
(shush shush shush)
when your work is good and done
(hush sh-shush)

or just let screen door slam to
(shush shush shush)
and let the water run
(hush sh-shush)
so I can put my arms around you
(hush now hush)
like this circle ’round the sun

1:03 am, north of a circle ’round the sun.

Two-Step in Boots

Posted on April 29, 2015 by Keely

put some miles on my boots
this week past
maybe some fifty miles
the same and same trails
In snow and slush and mud and dust
and a sun that throws daily different shadows
It’s fast, this business of spring
And I have made fast miles to keep up

slip-slush-splash and a few miles in wet jeans
That chafe and tug
what of it? It’s ice and mud
and laugh it off and welcome the sun
Did it again the next day, too
and again and again with sore feet and
giggling like the white goose flying
the first one shot
a hundred bucks to the gun

blue lake ice and then the same ice pitted
caribou antlers bend like mossy rubber
and in two days the white slough buckles under the bank
and disappears and unveils the carcasses of salmon
lying glinting in the river like silver gold
And dried on the sand like paper cranes

girl prints and caribou moon prints
by the gravel bar where bears are
and wolf toenails and boot heels
cutting the sand on the driftwood bank
slush steps fast-sinking in the melting lake
and the moon fading in the summering sky
this hurrying business of spring
is dancing miles on my boots
this week past
maybe some fifty miles

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Too muddy for too many words

Posted on April 23, 2015 by Keely

Miss A wrote in her journal that “the best part of being outside is feeling the sun on my back. It feels so warm and good.”

This week is culture week, and the students have a half-day of music every day. They are learning fiddle, guitar and traditional dance. The program these folks run is amazing, and the kids are loving it.

For culture week, one community member invited us to his house to see the wolf he'd trapped. Black wolves are prized for their fur along the coast.

For culture week, one community member invited us to his house to munch on dry meat and see the wolf he’d trapped. Wolves are a significant threat to the moose population, which the community relies on for subsistence, so managing wolf numbers in the area is of real concern to the village. Black wolves like this one are prized for their fur by the people who live along the coast.

Some of the kids and I took the music instructors for a walk after the cakewalk last night.

The prom committee made another hundred dollars from the fundraiser, and I won back the lemon cake that had been making my house smell like heaven all afternoon. Only about a quarter of it made it home, though. You can’t not share your cakewalk winnings.

I had girls in the kitchen right up to the last second baking cakes, and there’s only so much giggling one can handle in a small space before fresh air becomes absolutely mandatory. I needed that walk, and the beautiful, silly kids just made it more refreshing.

M built the tiniest snowman! This is the only week of the year so far where the snow has been wet enough to make snowballs. They fly thick and fast whenever I take my students outside for journals.

Feet.

“I’d like to run through that puddle in the morning,” remarked A on our post-cookie walk through the village tonight.

Most of the walk was a game of tag and tangle with Gracious, C’s adorable dog.

We’re excited! The Cinderella Project of Maine is trying to help us get prom dresses, and we made the roll call (about three minutes in) on CNN Student News today! Between that and cookie night, it’s been a real red letter day.

Saturday Speaks for Itself

Posted on April 19, 2015 by Keely

They were playing out behind the post office. “Can we take pictures with your camera? Of the big lollipop puddle?”

I let them take a few pictures, then they wanted one all together.

I let them take a few, then they wanted one all together.

The elephant graveyard is thawing out

Terri, Ben and I went for a walk with the little gal Terri is babysitting this week.

B came by just in time to help us build our campfire.

it burned green!

I will never get tired of sunset

Posted on April 18, 2015 by Keely

Luck bestows a lot of twilight on the arctic, but it is migrating rapidly from noon to midnight, and it’s harder and harder to get out to enjoy it. I didn’t come home from this hike until nearly 10:30 on Thursday evening, but it was well worth the lost sleep.

January

Everything I thought I knew about time and space seems very muddled. Sunset in no way corresponds with bedtime, nor does sunrise align with waking. When I first got here, the sun very determinedly rose and then shortly set again in the south. Now it’s all creeping north, sliding along the horizon.The whole arrangement seems very unreliable for something so cosmic. My classroom windows face north, and my avocado is flourishing there.

April

It’s very lively, the way the shadows never seem to fall the same way twice.

One of the most fun and strange things about teaching is how it pushes you to do things you never had any interest in before. My students don’t want to put on a play or start a literary magazine or a garden: they want a prom. Consequently, I have been very busy with, of all things, prom planning. What will our theme be? Who can come? How can we arrange for the girls to get their hair done? How can we transport them through the muddy May village without soiling their shoes? Last night was our first fundraiser, a spaghetti dinner and movie night, and the girls carried it off with style: They cooked, they cleaned up, they announced the event over the radio, they handled disasters and complaints like pros. It was so much better than I expected.

I know what you’re thinking: It’s your first fundraiser?! How can you expect to have a real prom if all you have is $120 and a group of wishful teenagers? Well, dear skeptics, we can’t expect to have a real prom. For a real prom, you usually need more than five boys in school, and it doesn’t hurt to have a local band, or a caterer, or a florist and someplace to rent a tux. Oh well. We don’t, and we have to make the most of it. Because I am their sponsor, we are going to try to get karaoke and laser tag, and to hell with your preconceived notions. I have enough cardboard stuffed behind my couch to make some very respectable prom decorations that can double as cover in the likely event of a laser tag shootout. I’m very pleased with the idea. $110 should get us enough glitter, and the rest we can scrounge. It might not look much like a prom, but it will be all kinds of fun.

If you happen to be sitting on a couple of old prom dresses or bridesmaid dresses that you can’t stand to look at anymore, it might be that my girls could put them back in action.

P.O. Box 81153, Venetie, AK