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.