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Niveous Skies
This story is a wind
Arriving from the sun
Magnetospheric particles collide
Birthing aurora borealis,
Prismatic ribbons of light
Forming above the Kara Sea
Past the Nordenskiöld Archipelago
Magnetic fields demarcate
These lines of extinction
Drawn in distant reaches
Siberian land of the polar bear
Seal-hunter at the edge of sea ice
Maritime transmutative shamans
Mythic shape-shifters
Become human at home
Breathed into being by Daedal Spirits
As foretold Polaris is born
Guiding star of a lost tribe
Daughter of Ursa Major,
Resplendent mother of the night sky
Artemis
Polaris bundled, newly formed
Left on Artemis’ threshold
Raised with the knowledge
In the summer of her third year
She must journey to a place
Beyond her imagining
Artemis, Wild Woman, warns
Of the myriad dangers:
Ice Wraiths with hypothermic
Breath spread madness
Treacherously thin ice floes
Carrying everything far out to sea
Sloughing glaciers sending
Animals to watery graves
But the worst fate
To be enchanted by
The siren call of Hearth Fires
Pernicious creatures, specious promises
Desire demons that consume the soul
Paralyzing monsters that trap
An eternity of wasting away
As Polaris grows she learns
Of the fantastical menagerie
Artic animals of special powers
Sagacious and far traversing terns
Narwhal that know the secrets of death
Their songs, talismans against the end
Caribou that resonate harmony
Trickster foxes with capacious minds
Around the home fires
She begins to understand her human form
Its drives and intellections
Streams and sanctuaries of creative flow
She prepares a fitting place and learns
The 1000 sacred names of snow
How to be invisible in her bear cloak
White on white, moving like the wind
Across this icy land
She explores, tests her strength
Contemplates being, leans into life
Scrying colored lights in the dark
Feeling the warmth of midnight sun
Pulse of life deep within calling her forth
She awaits the catalyst, transformation
That will initiate her quest
Her journey to the source
Novaya Zemlya
And so she waits breathing
Beauty into the world
Sings new songs of awakening
Her streams becoming rivers
Roaring across her inner landscape
As the Kara flows through
Baydaratskaya Bay to feed the sea
In the Spring of her third year
Prowling the northern borders
She arrives at Novaya Zemlya
Ice-scoured fjords, narrow inlets,
Guarded by skerries
Upon the wind is a melody
Like none heard before
Lured closer she learns too late
Of the infestation of Hearth Fires!
Their radioactive contamination
Lairs in nuclear submarine reactors
Half-life remnants of the Cold War
Becquerel bravado still feeding evil
Melodies turn to piercing cries
Polluting her sanctuary of creativity
Poisoned, weakened, she seeks counsel
Artemis, now contaminated cannot aid her
Sends her to speak with the narwhal
‘All my songs have been stolen by the wind
My mind and purpose are clouded
This hunger for art is now insatiable
Artemis is also sickened, please help us’
The keeper of death’s secrets
Intones into Polaris to discern
A cure, ‘This pollution is a fire
Malevolent psychic complex
Devouring your spirit,
Only the aurora borealis
Can heal your wounds
You must now journey to a place
Beyond your imagining’
Midnight Sun
‘How will I make it
Carrying this burden of disease
Though these vast wilds?’
‘You must learn to trust
Overcome your fear and begin
I will give you this iolite amulet
When the time comes you will
Know its purpose, now go’
So Polaris, invisible in her bear cloak
Walks along the path that
Will take her to the edge of
Everything she has known
The nights become like days
She remembers little of life before
Forgets why she is searching
Loses her sense of direction
Beleaguered and exhausted
She digs a den beneath the snow pack
Taking off her bear cloak
Visions of her inner life return
There were sacred names
Hands that made things
A riverbed; was there a river?
Her voice croaks a broken song
She burrows deeper
Ice wraiths gather seeing
That she does not wear her fur
Stalk and whisper frosty exhalations:
‘Sleep, sleep little one
Stay, tell us your troubles little one’
Polaris closes her eyes dreaming
Of the song the Hearth Fires sang:
‘Come rest here by the fire
You are so very cold,
This will warm you from the inside’
She is offered a metal chalice
Peers into the cup
Blue flame dances within
‘Drink it, we will care for you’
One sip and the song’s melody
Transforms to piercing screams
‘You are in our domain
Your passion is now ours
We have marked you with our wounding
Stolen your music and laid claim to your life
All your days you will wander lost
Unable to mend your inner being
Your voice will bear our fire!’
The wraiths combine into one
Circinate being, move in for the kill
Wolves, drawn by the whispers
Snarl, growl, and destroy the Wraiths
Wrap Polaris in her cloak
Curl their white furred bodies
Round her in a healing circle
Sanctuary
“We are powerful hunters
Have found you hidden here
Saved you from the Ice Wraiths
Yet even we see that your wounding
Goes deeper, a censoring that
Stole your voice, your songs
Disease spreading through Artemis
Burning all it touches
We will guide you to the aurora borealis’
So the Wolves take her to the farthest point
‘Here we must return to our lands
Tonight in the liminal space
Earth and Sky unite and you will speak
Through the prismatic lights to the
Daedal Spirits that created you
Returning to Earth to share your healing
Curing the North of this radioactive plague’
Polaris waits, tries to craft a song
For the approaching ones
But the fire scorches her throat
Weeping and weakened she clutches
Iolite amulet to her heart
Night’s curtain falling she looks
Toward Ursa Major
Niveous sky clears as the
Lights gather, sweeping in spirals
Vortex of blue, green, and red
Daedal Spirits speak
‘You are ill, contaminated by
Man’s industry, Hearth Fires
Severing your connection to
Our creative flow
We are the source
You must clear the channels
Let the eutrophication of the river end’
‘How do I remove this poison?’
Daedal Spirits swarm about her
Lift her into the space between
Earth and Sky, singing harmonics
Trembling from the sound that
Resonates within, her iridescent amulet
Pleochroic iolite radiates prismatic light
Polaris sings her own songs joining the melody
Hearth Fire no longer igniting inside
Passion and meaning coalesce
She is returned to Earth
‘Remember the sacred names of snow
Run with the Wolves
Quell the Hearth Fires, banish them
We did not create you to be constrained
To be beholden and broken
Be wild, allow the river to rage’
This poem, which was begun on day 22 of NaPoWriMo concludes today and is linked to Victoria’s excellent prompt on allegory (how serendipitous); http://dversepoets.com/2012/04/26/dverse-poets-pub-meeting-the-bar-allegory/
Chromapoetica 
whew this is epic…what a story…what a development and what a way…love the images of the aurora borealis..the running with wolves and the discovery through the ice and storm..very cool anna
Thanks Claudia, there’s a great book called Women Who Run With the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes, a Jungian Analyst, that explores the themes of fairy tales. You might enjoy it. I read it in 1992 and it made a huge impression.
Wow, you had me at the very beginning with the first few lines. The rest just keep up this passionate and amazing poem.
http://leah-jamielynn.typepad.com/blog/
Thank you Leah, great to hear it grabbed you.
whew…nice continuation of this anna…love that last bit where th wisdom is passed and great imagery as well in the interaction with the spirits….
Oh, glad you loved the end, thanks Brian!
Pheeew…. that deserves the title of epic. What a journey, what a tale. How sad because every living thing has to try to adapt or die from our pollution and poisoning of almost everything we touch. This is a stunning piece of work Anna. Stunning!
So true, and we poison our creativity which constrains what is imagined and engineered for problem solving. Thank you very much for your kind compliment.
Enchanted, enthralling – raptures my attention and emotions. This journey is familiar to me.
This means a lot to me Sheila, thank you.
Anna, this is such a delicate blend of mythology, science, Native mysticism, psychology–just exquisite images that, for me, gave a sense of another dimension. This has to be one of my favorite of your works. 1000 sacred names for snow? Wow! Thanks for sharing.
Thank you, Victoria for the prompt. It was serendipitous opportunity for me to share Polaris. How wonderful it’s one of your favorites; I always appreciate your feedback!
That was a proper ending. Very cool piece. I definitely see your point from you comment earlier on and I too would find it remarkable that a piece so detailed and strong was able to put together while participating in the Napowri. Big time Kudos. whenever I do my epic pieces it always takes me a while and find I post little pieces just to post something, truly remarkable piece. Thanks
I think it was one of those pieces that never would have happened without the challenge but one that’s been incubating for a long time so that once I outlined the architecture the story flowed. Your encouragement and kindness are deeply appreciated!
I think I found a new mission statement for life:
‘Run with the Wolves
Quell the Hearth Fires, banish them
We did not create you to be constrained
To be beholden and broken
Be wild, allow the river to rage’
Me too :); I surprised myself when it flowed out this afternoon. Thanks so much for stopping by to read.
I read it a second time through. I’m making a mental list of all the things the Hearth Fires represent for me and checking how I’m coming along with my quelling.
Wonderful to hear, I think that’s the power of myth, it allows us that depth of personal interpretation and spurs us to action.
These are my favorite sections, Anna; although the whole tale is incredibly well-written, captivating, and deep:
“Mythic shape-shifters
Become human at home”
“Ice Wraiths with hypothermic
Breath spread madness”
“But the worst fate
To be enchanted by
The siren call of Hearth Fires”
“She prepares a fitting place and learns
The 1000 sacred names of snow”
“All my songs have been stolen by the wind
My mind and purpose are clouded”
“taking off her bear cloak
Visions of her inner life return
There were sacred names
Hands that made things”
“Remember the sacred names of snow
Run with the Wolves”
To me, this is about a “mama bear” with responsibilities in the home which keep her from living in the forest of creativity and art. She has a longing to roam wild and free among the rest of the animals, wearing her amulet and singing her song.
Thank you Shawna, your detailed feedback is very helpful. I think the power of myth is that it can speak to each of us differently and of different issues at various points in our lives. Yet it remains universal. There are some stories that I come back to ten years later and discover new thoughts and feelings about. Also, what I love about poetry is that the reader has so much room to co-create meaning with the author; allegory gives us even greater room for artistic exchange.
I completely agree. So much of interpretation is based on experience, exposure, and perception.
oh my, wow. i am sad to see this end, but what an ending. i love those closing lines, lines that need to be written in a journal and re-read often.
I also loved this:
“Yet even we see that your wounding
Goes deeper, a censoring that
Stole your voice, your songs”
This is my favorite work of yours so far, and that is a tough choice to make, I love everything you do.
Kelly, your kind words mean a lot. I’m a little forlorn today now that it’s finished, I feel like I wanted to spin out more stories about animals in the middle but for the prompt I knew it was already asking a lot of readers to deal with its length.
Bravo Anna… you are doing a fine job.. and yes, ‘allow the river to rage’
Thank you Becky, I always appreciate your input. I have been meaning to return to the FEPC and begin to get feedback prior to posting. Now that I’ve hired an editor for the Chromatopia collection and NaPoWriMo is ending I’ll be able to manage that and look forward to it.
Born with the moon in Cancer
choose her name she will answer to
call her green and the winters cannot fade her,
green for the children of radioactive plague who have made her.
Just a little green for the nights when the Northern Lights perform…
Do you play any Joni on your piano?
xoxo
And hope you are enjoying NaPoWriMo. I am too chicken to join in. hats off to you, my dear!
No I don’t play any Joni, but Blue is my favorite of her albums :). It came out a couple years before I was born. I like your lyric addition!
This is an awesome epic as it can be read and related to at different levels. I see this as a parallel to personal journey. One gets out into the world, full of promise, and Polaris came out to the world, perfectly whole. In going on that journey, it took her away from home, things she so much so she seem to have forgotten why she there and who she is. In the same way, I think a lot of us has the best intentions when we head out, but we lose our way, at some point sometimes we give in and we are caught, like Polaris was caught by those ice wraiths.
I love the end there. Polaris does what she does. She was at one point, unsure and it’s as if she might fail but she held on to what she was given. The last lines echo and I think as a message to the creative spirit or simply just the spirit, a reminder, “you are meant to be free”. There are things that can happen that strangle that strength in us. The story doesn’t fault Polaris in anyway, which is what I like about it as well. Its not simply that one is weak that one gets caught, it’s just overwhelming at times the things we encounter that hurts us.
This epic piece is gonna stay with me.
I smiled warmly through your whole comment :). The parallel to our personal journey is where the usefulness of the myth/fairy tale comes into play. Losing our intention, I like how you’ve put this and getting caught up pulls us away from our lives. We hold onto what we are given by those we trust to get through those times when we don’t think we’ll make it. I completely agree with you about faulting Polaris, I didn’t want this to be about atonement as much as getting back in touch with the source of strength and creativity. In the US we are a mixture but also largely a guilt based culture. I don’t think that necessarily serves us well, we look for others to blame or blame ourselves, maybe as a way of feeling in control. She has to take responsibility and do the hard work of the journey but she has help and in the end she can’t do it alone. It is wonderful to know that this touched you and was meaningful, thank you very much for your attention and feedback.
OhmyWORD. You put a whole lot more thought, beauty, power and kick-@$$-ness into this prompt than I did. WOW. Breathtaking.
You had me laughing there with ‘kick-@$$-ness’, that’s awesome. Thank you for taking the time to read it and for your kind words. I’m thrilled it spoke to you.
A brilliant piece, enthralling and powerful. I love the imagery 🙂
How wonderful to hear, thank you.
Impressive, that you could conceive it whole and keep the shape of it through all of that! A great read – which I shall have to repeat at some point. Thanks for.
Thank you David :). I have a 40 section epic that is almost finish but need another full edit so this was a small task in comparison.
The mythic qualities of this are amazingly broad and detailed. Your narrative tone has that epic rhythm that carries us along like a skiff on a wide sea. You’ve really nailed a heroic tenor in the words that speaks directly to a fiber in us that seeks such visions and wholeness from life. Excellent delving into worlds that bring us into a magical, enchanting world.
Gosh Charles, I love how you’ve put this, it makes me feel like I’ve done my job as conduit of the story. Thank you.
Anna, as good as this poem is, let me say that you are not going to do this story and your craft justice without turning this into a true epic. One can already see that you have the staying power to sustain a long narrative; but to explore the characters and situations and levels of symbology that you are attempting will take more than a single page. As a poet with a unique voice, you have a responsibility to yourself and your readers to explore this mythology more, to write the epic mythology that we all know is in you.
Thank you Samuel, I have a 40 section epic called Mere Beasts that I am completing and polishing at the moment. I wanted to tell more of this story here but on a blog felt I should respect both the reader’s time and Victoria’s call to not make our allegory as long as Dante’s :). However, I agree with you, this one comes in at 6 pages and I could easily see another 10-15 sections. You’ve said the magic word responsibility, which always spurs me to action.
Firstly, brava for continuing this epic poem over so many days..it’s something I would love to try some time….the imagery and story are fantastic and I was rooting for Polaris all the way. What happens, happens and she deals with it (with a little help from the wolves, which I loved) I also love the last stanza …”‘Remember the sacred names of snow
Run with the Wolves
Quell the Hearth Fires, banish them
We did not create you to be constrained
To be beholden and broken
Be wild, allow the river to rage’ ~ Fabulous Anna! I thoroughly enjoyed it! 🙂
Louise, I think you would take to an epic like a butterfly to Spring. I hope you do try it, I’d love to read it. Thanks so much for your feedback :).
There is so, so much to praise and comment on here that I’m not sure where to start, Anna. It’s a daunting task to write an epic poem, let alone a serialized epic poem and this succeeds on all accounts. I love the mythology of it and the Russian setting in place names and your so descriptive words gives it an ice and snow accent that makes the star of Polaris shine even more brightly through your mythic story and allegory that runs beneath it. And, despite its epic breath, every word keeps up its pulsing rhythm and provide just the right color to make the story fantastic, leaving the reader hanging on and imagining with every word. On pondering it after reading, I’m left with pictures of borealis lights against a frozen sky and the play of Polaris as spirit in the world making that struggle we all know too well. Absolutely brilliant and beautiful.
Well Ben, a comment well worth the wait. I deeply appreciate the time you spent pondering and the words you’ve shared with me today. I will treasure them.
I really enjoyed this! Very vivid imagery, it came to life in my mind.
Thank you sweetheart.