At Anaktuvuk Pass

Motherless on the cusp of the Giant’s Valley
I am childless, reduced.

Stark things bellow all about me,
Dusted with new snow and inaccessible.

The pass runnels off its axis, lapsing
A few degrees from true north: devoid,

Our dialect differs. Miluk a mountain’s name.
Barren-ground caribou arriving beneath it

From Napakrualuit, a place that looks like trees.
Once anointed with grease and ashes—

Now distant from sage, sorrel, and stinging nettle,
Divided into self again.

by Joan Kane