Kenneth C. Steven
Listening
That evening, the sea plane nodded on a hidden edge of river.
First, the two boys clambered in the back,
Scrapping like young bears.
We followed, folded in behind the dials, knees in our chests.
Lars steered out, hammered the plane across the water
Till suddenly we rose, and all of Finnmark fell away,
The sun climbed diamond from a ledge of sky
To light a hundred lakes. Reindeer battled out beneath,
Streaming from the aircraft’s sudden coming;
Our shadow passed across the hills -
A slow midge drifting south.
We came down on the tundra -
A white curve across the wind -
A thousand feet up, forty miles from any road.
All around the cabin nets and paddles, drums of oil, old wood,
Then nothing, only lake and moor and lake.
I listened, waited for the silence, and heard instead,
A sky full of voices -
Great northern divers, phalaropes, curlew, grebes -
An ancient song, creation’s song.
Page(s) 126
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