Walking Around Toolik Lake, Alaska
When willow and birch
shrubs, about shoulder
height, the birch with
small, round, reflective
leaves with ridged outlines,
the willow with elongated,
slender leaves, fall in line
there is usually a river
flowing on top of the
permafrost but beneath
the ground surface. Alone
doesn’t mean much here.
I find a fire scar: a field
of cottongrass reflecting
a clouded sky, my feet
stepping between the
individual grass bodies,
spherical dense mounds
of old, accumulated
grass with white flowers
on top, the mounds the
size of my head with
puddles between.
The rain is less than
an hour away to the east,
soon to be earthbound,
easy to see it coming.
Jess Gersony is a poet and plant biologist investigating how plants are responding to climate change in the Alaskan arctic tundra, the forests of New England, and the Atacama desert in Chile. Her poetry has appeared in The Sycamore Review.