Greenland

The hunter wakes up

Knowing what season it is

Whether to net ptarmigans

With a breath and a single stroke

As they fly north for summer

Or spear seals

As they come up to breathe

Though nowadays using a rifle

Behind a white blind

Or cutting up narwhales lost in the bay

The days of trudging

Pushes sledges

Are long gone

Outboard motors and rifles

Speed him on his way

To great family feasts

Of birds fermented in a sealskin bag

Or else boiled whole feathers and all

Divine heady stew

Fresh whale meat sweeter than any fruit

Steaks of caribou or musk ox

But sometimes sleep doesn’t come

When he reflects how warm

The days have become

Or how poorly his pelts sell

Barely enough to support

The wife and children

Who will not follow

In the footsteps he has followed

In a line unbroken for millennia

But be lost in the whiteout

Of the outside world