Nautilus Ninety North. Inuksuk.
by Edward Baranosky
Artwork: Submarine, Edward Baranosky
Nautilus Ninety North
Things are always at their best in their beginning.
--Blaise Pascal
Herring gulls, glaucous gulls.
black-headed gulls, all-white arctic
gulls; fairy terns and kittiwakes¾
the sailors are in port, shore-leave
from the big ships lying-to,
drawing the land sharks
camp followers, barracuda
and the big gray vans of the Shore Patrol
picking up the early unconscious
and the lost late wanderers.
breaking up overlapping brawls
from train to bus to Back-Bay pub
rolling from door to door, listing to port,
and listening to the scuttlebutt,
the loose lips that can sink ships.
In the dark corner of a bar,
a massive sailor kicks back alone
against a table; depth-charge in hand,
a beer with a whiskey chaser,
a submariner insignia.
A dark shadow slips,
silent running, deep under the arctic
ice, sonar’s constant searching
for the point with one way-out
rotating with the planet.
Secret AWACs shuttle
their awaited signals from the surface
code readers; undetected silence
then a loud murmur crosses the bars.
and even the brawls pause.
The submariner has departed
the beer glass unnoticed as the chaos lingers.
overturned whiskey glass placed by
a gull’s feather leaving a damp scrawl,
Nautilus Ninety North.
Inuksuk
And for just once more I would take the Northwest Passage,
Searching for the hand of Franklin pointing to the Beaufort Sea...
~ Stan Rogers
and in the spring air
an Arctic skunk emerges
with a line of kittens’ tails,
a promenade of vertical
signals to their dad
who trundles along behind
the young sun burns
turning ashes to ashes carried
to the outstretched arms
of the men of stone
set into place centuries before
bones of foreign traders
are stacked with empty tins
of salmon and wasted ammunition,
metal cases, tools and knives, rusting
away where Kilroy never trod.
here the Arctic dire wolves
meet their woodland cousins
sharing and marking
their seasonal history of hunts
play fighting in the new light
flocks of crows frolic
around the extended arms of stone
jostling each other’s perch,
while smaller birds swarm
in and out all day long
far above the tree line
measuring the daily shadow
drifting southward
then north again, the days’
midnight sun finally setting