Alaska Poems

Alaska 2025

As the presidential plane kissed the Alaskan ground,
I beheld Putin — the fox, the KGB man,
his boot pressing on soil once Russia’s own,
a chess master reclaiming forgotten squares.

Another jet descended. Trump emerged,
a merchant prince, an actor upon the stage,
his hand raised high over a land America bought,
yet Russia never forgot.

Shadows lengthened over this summit:
Will it

Reid Glacier - Glacier Bay

(Reid Glacier, Alaska, 2024)

Reid Glacier - Glacier Bay

Your electric blues
Reflect the light of deepest space
Like tropical waves
Suspended in time

Slow moving
At the pace of mountains
Water seeking water
Like a child returning home

(9/20/24)

Guilt Trip to Alaska

My eyes watered so heavily 
To the music sounding so heavenly 
I’m the perfect state of mind 
To cry at every sound 
This time around 

What’s sad is the wreckage is falling apart 
Pretty soon it’ll all be gone 

What’s hurting is knowing memories can be false 
The world is leaving me to decide 
What’s

A Toucan In Alaska

A dog in Alabama
    a snake in Tennessee
  A toucan in Alaska
    a mule in Kentucky

  Texas has its longhorns
    Colorado its buffalo
  Arizonans look up at mountains
    Montanans attend rodeos

  Every place a different pet
   

What Are Those

they are gorgeous, what are they?
Ice flows! They look like ice sculptures
I stared at them, in wonder,
remembering now why I had never been on a cruise
After watching the movie Titanic
I could not keep my eyes off of them
thinking of that ship and wondering
how someone had talked me into this cruise

In the Hazy Light

Variegated streaks
criss-crossing,
soothing lavender
then fiery maroon,
with belts of amber
in between. 

Slate blue bluffs
catch the sun before it lands,
dipping into the rippling orange
of the mottled lake.

The pitch black pines are still,
passed the rusty mesh
of a rickety screen door.
Our eyes were fixed
up to the moment
your coppered profile 
became shadow, 
and I could see you no more
in the hazy

Mom

The seasick ache
where you hold your breath
serenade in the mix of catastrophe
and the bottomless pit of emptiness

when you're

nails deep in your scalp
gripfuls of hair and you want to throw up.
A voice silenced by thunderstorm daydreams
and
hopeless ocean fantasies 
of what once was.
A moment in time behind my mind
I stand still and wait desperately for you.

mom.

The vertigo

Alaska Sitka Sunset

As I near the stratosphere, I let loose
an untamed, raw rainbow

I pull on the tattered, worn ropes
of my hand-sewn hot-air balloon across
the hidden boreal quarry hill in the north

they rose above the nose
of a furious focus bear
and whack the back legs
of a swift white-tailed deer

on the tips of their fingers
they follow the wave's crest
gliding across

Alaska Question

Shiver me timbers and blow me down

    By climate change Juneau who was drowned

Ultimately, Alaska

Farewell, father.  On adrenaline filled adventures, you’ve raised me.  Canoeing open waters, fishing with trident spears.  In search of game, we’ve explored.  I clench my Glock .45,  the Brown Bears passed us by.  A proverbial Sirens call?  Nay.  Whatever lies ahead, I’ll take you with me. 

Brown Bear Moved To Alaska

Brown bear moved to Alaska to play in the snow.
You will see him from time to time, said my cousin Moe.
He does not blend in like the polar bears do.
There he is now, in a pile of the wet sticky goo.

Brown bear waved from behind a snow hill.
Snow stuck on his fur, which gave him

8400 Miles Nonstop

The bar-tailed godwit
caught birddom by surprise
When word got out
just how far this bird flies

A juvenile Limosa lapponica,
satellite tag 2-3-4-6-8-4
flew nonstop from Alaska
to the Tasmanian shore!
13,560 kilometers nonstop,
eleven days and nights
A new world record for
marathon bird flights

"From Alaska to Tasmania?
The devil, you say!"
cried ravens and crows,
"Every bird knows,
claiming to fly 8400 miles
To the Tasmanian isles—
is the

Otter Love You More

bow riding 
Dall's porpoises play

sea otters, orcas
and bald eagles
every day
herding salmon

otter find another boat
and some porpoise

otter love you more
like I did in Alaska 

otter mend this net
love slips through
reel it in carefully
and stack it meticulously 
(setting it should
never ensue disaster)

a listless drifter
I have been 
tempting storms
and rocky shores

otter live this life on porpoise
like I did

Cruise To Alaska Ii

Cold and icy passageway to trudge through.
Ships and warships sailed thru the Bering Strait.
In limbo 'tween two nations, iced, staid too.
When I first set out,  for thrill I await. 
Where ferocious beasts can hunt and roam thru. 

Gray clouds with puffy tops hedge their offspring. 
Calmly shifting layers, like a stack shades. 
Wet and wild

Cruise To Alaska

The trip was a riot of color,
It brings a myriad of queries,
Fantastic tales of utter darkness,
Views' visible roots were explored. 

Mainsail surges,
pungent froth carried wave tips while,
blast swings moaning openly.

superb mountains,
Convey streams into streaming rivers,
Down slants shrouded in woods.

And the majesty of the stars,
Is confronted every morning,
Under soft white clouds,
is with each foot I set

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