We, held captive by a diagnosis of doom,
by a time table of loss, look up, desperate.

In polar night, solar storms send particles
of amazement— bursting in the atmosphere.

Spirit cascades with color take our thoughts away.
A sense of irrelevance— that great blessing,
overwhelms us, swirling with awe.

We humans will rob Earth Mother of her children for
the next 100 million years— we wonder where and
who we are?

Who shall be enchanted by Aurora’s glory
over epochs in the absence of life?
How cold will be our remembering?

Surely not, we who come from this northern realm,
have sprung from Fjord of the Trolls.
Certainly not we—so full of questions.

Ancestors from the belly of tall ships that left Norwegian
shores question Spirit—Will Aurora careen and unfold as
long as the Sun yields its unstoppable particles?

Will Aurora’s streams of light hold latent souls
until Mother gives birth once again to the world?
Will Spirit ever answer them?

Suddenly, a lump appears in the throat of Verdandi,
poet of the present, bound for the Arctic skies.
She is mourning the lives of her foremothers.
She has spent little or no time with them.

Generations of sky-obsessed grandmothers sense
saliva pouring over as she swallows hard,
time and time again.

Verdandi fights tears as hard and bitter sorrow stings.
Her sister Urd, poet of the past, tends Verdandi, who
utters cries of joy for time before the Black Death.

Then elk, foxes, wolves, sperm whale, covered
each fjord bay, teeming with vigor. Tilting her
head back to face Aurora in despair—

Inhaling fierce, icy breaths, Urd reminds Verdandi
of woeful loneliness of the Sami, their grandmothers’
people, shuttled—sea to mountains—

Inland waterways—interior farms. Verdandi and Urd beg
Aurora to say if this migration were made for anything but
lucre? They wait for answers.

Aurora throws down white curtains— Borealis sweeps
the deck with blistering cold air. Verdandi continues her
lament, as Urd begins grieving the lives of Sami children

Forced to attend Norwegian school, forbidden to speak
their Samski language— swallowing hard as ever,
Verdandi asks why such atrocities persist

Other than inclining to destroy the culture of the
indigenous. After inhaling more polar air, Verdandi
breathes out mist— asks why endless confiscation
of their lands:

Dislocation, German scorching, destruction of alpine
forests. No answer here. So knowing enquiry is endless
— still Urd and Verdandi persist the inquisition. Why did
one-godded Christians swallow their religion—

Rob them of the worship of spirits in every fauna,
flora, landform, stone? Why did the government kill
73,000 reindeer, inedible after Chernobyl?
The ensuing silence hurts.

The sisters stand still in the fury of the north, of Borealis.
Verdandi pulls the coat around her neck as Urd touches
her sister’s tears, frozen stiff just beneath her eyes.

Together on this midnight ship — a community of shivers
floating over the Arctic Circle, swaying in the realm of
Borealis. Aurora invited Odin, god and ruler of Asgard,
revered by all Vikings, to join us tonight.

Odin still resides in Valhalla, where he prepares for the
gods to be extinguished— the world to be rendered anew.
He needed Valkyries on horseback carrying spears,
shields to Valhalla.

Aurora illuminates the sky with reflections of Valkyries’
armor. We strain our current vision to see where
reflections rise. Borealis howls, exposes the lump
Verdandi sought to hide.

The ship passes Tromsø— Aurora hurtles white curtains
down like majestic ladders of pure white silk. The lump
advances and recedes in Verdandi’s throat. The days of
the dead and living scatter

Behind Aurora’s celestial veil. Urd can see her sister’s
lump under delicate cover of her exposed neck skin.
Borealis unmasks all that again and again.
It is futile to hide.

Night rolls by all the places, jewels on Aurora’s crown —
Trondheim, Bodø, Logenfren, form a ring around the
sphere of the Great Mother in a glowing circle. Once
we were a community of the Norwegian sea—

Its waves black as octopus ink, icebergs evanescent as
our lives. Will stories, farms, mountains, alpine forests,
tundra of Norway melt back into the sea
like the Sami under duress?

Skuld— poet of the future, ponders if Verdandi’s lump
will melt away too? And with that, dissolve Urd’s key
to the past? Will climate collapse define the future
height of the ocean?

Will it rise to drown Oslo and Bergen in its wake?
Will Thor’s hammer descend and hit the birch trees
on the Arctic coastline beach— chasing, lounging
ghostly coral back to the ocean floor?

Verdandi’s tears dissolve again like icebergs, leaving
salt water, forgetting the One who paints the sky with
star dust. Skuld sees the future twelve years away—
destiny sides with climate collapses for good.

Will we forsake the One who dances with messengers of
the Sun? Will we be torn from Spirit utterly? Immense
twirling of Aurora’s green spiral illuminates the night sky
— a vast funnel, then fizzles.

The salt crusting on Verdandi’s chipped and burning lips
is swallowed— joy erupts in the color purple connecting
with the stars. Memories of Odin and Freyja
making love under Orion’s belt—

Connected only with a backward glance— consumed
in the melting. Our Viking blood spilled in the thawing
creek will mix with poems, peace nomination, runes,
dreams.

As Aurora Borealis pretends to slumber, Verdandi
dreams of a Blessing Way, held in the nubile mountains
of Santa Cruz. Verdandi and Loki, the trickster,
live on the land.

Vanessa asks Verdandi, “Will you invoke an ancestor
of the land to bless my brimming babe?” Honored,
Verdandi stands up, breathes deeply, energy surging
through her esophagus into the throat.

She says “Mother Mountain Lion is ancestor of acres of
chaparral and oak. She is the One who watches over.
Blessed be.”

Six nights later Vanessa gives birth. Loki and Verdandi
are ordered not to disturb. Three nights after the birth,
reading at home across the parking lot from Vanessa,
they hear a bone-chilling scream.

Next thing Vanessa is on the phone announcing loudly
a mountain lion on their front deck. They hear Quentin’s
and Clive’s quick footprints. Loki grabs his flashlight,—
Verdandi joins him running.

They are shown large foot prints. Loki looks down
from the live oak grove into the parking lot—shines
his flashlight slowly— seeing two still small spots
of light slightly moving.

Loki and Verdandi go inside. Next morning Verdandi and
Loki awaken— walk down to their labyrinth. Vanessa and
Clive show them their son. Did the family want to leave
after this harrowing encounter so near to birth?

No, word on this. Only that the boy is named Julian—
Jove’s child— There were no lion visitations for months.
Then strange sounds around dusk— chirping—
no ordinary birds could have uttered.

A sudden scream at Vanessa’s house— her cat—
Marco Polo— being taken away. Vanessa and Quentin
ran outside yelling, entreating the lions not to return.
In very loud voices, they circled around their deck

Where Marco Polo had been killed. We begged them to
come inside. They were transported into near madness
by their anger. Vanessa made an altar for Marco Polo.
She didn’t see how Mother Lion could let this happen

When she had dedicated the land by naming her child
Julian, child of Jove. In two nights, the chirping contest
resumed— lions, juvenile males with few instructions
on how to behave around humans, were at it again.

Verdandi and Loki’s cat, Fez, who had been brought
in the afternoon had escaped. Near dusk, Fez joined the Puma
clan. We haven’t seen lions for more than a year — nor a deer.

Julian is eighteen months and will not stay inside.
He does not speak, but roars if his parents do not
take him outdoors. This is not an ordinary toddler’s
obsession. It is extreme.

His parents supervise as he runs up, down the garden
path, through the woods— seeking large birds like
wild turkeys and red-tailed hawks.