By Lynn Hansen
Modesto Branch, California

 

When brilliant light is dancing in Arctic summer skies

kittiwakes bathe in icy pools, green or aqua blue

in the land of midnight sun where ice bears live and die.

 

Whaler’s graves and bowhead bones are scattered where they lie

not far from trapper’s cabin, where gunshots killed bears too

when brilliant light is dancing in Arctic summer skies.

 

At water’s edge, ringed seals slip off icy land then dive.

On the wing, Glaucous gulls guard a downy chick or two

in the land of midnight sun where ice bears live and die.

 

Guillemots’ eggs lay balanced on narrow cliff ledge high,

Atlantic puffins land, their beaks with fish askew

when brilliant light is dancing in Arctic summer skies.

 

Valley glaciers crack and calve large chunks of hard blue ice,

reindeer graze on hillsides green off windswept coasts in view

in the land of midnight sun where ice bears live and die.

 

A white bear swings its head and sniffs, ambles over ice,

wild and free each one maintains its solitary rule

when brilliant light is dancing in Arctic summer skies

in the land of midnight sun where ice bears live and die.