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I do not wish to be
the voice of the Bering Sea’s struggle,
nor would I deny the plight
of sea ice and polar bears at once living and dying for home.

I am an inhabitant on more temperate shores,
the golden waves of grain,
where all my hopes lie stiff within its shores,
the place where freedom rang
and then stumbling back into its cave
went off as wasted and soured oil.
here my days pass as snails on grass
and the night has the same cornucopia of stars
that birthed all hope en masse.
Here the people echo a hard but necessary truth,
here there are no stars,
here we navigate by feel
and vote our way into civil war
if half refuses to stay the course.