Poetry
North of the Last Light
The sun comes up crooked, a thin coin over black water, and does not stay.
Wind combs the birch along the shore. Something is always leaving here — ice, ships, the names of men.
We built our houses facing inward, spoke little, kept the fire low, counted winters like beads.
And when the sea took what it wanted we did not shout at the dark. We carved it down. We slept.
In spring the fjord forgets us kindly. Gulls stitch the fog with their crying. The light returns, an hour longer,
as if nothing had been lost, as if the cold were only patience, as if we were made of the same.