Say the names, say the names
Iqaluit, Pangnirtung, Qikiqtarjuac,
Remember summers, walking on soft tundra
feet fashioning themselves around rocks
and the scent of flowers
Say
Grise Fiord, Resolute, Kugluktuk
Remember winter, the long twilight,
snow crunching underfoot,
silence except for the sea's breath
under the ice
Say
Gjoa Haven, Igloolik, Rankin Inlet
Remember glaciers, ice burgs, mountains,
polar bear, whales, and seal
snow mobile and canoe
Say the name
Nunavut
Don't let memories fade
Ellecee
Inspired by today's prompt from
imaginary garden with real toads
For
"the long twilight,snow crunching underfoot,silence except for the sea's breath under the ice"...gosh I love the images you depict here!💜
ReplyDeleteI love the walk through the seasons...vivid imagery here.
ReplyDeleteThose are some great names -- and a very important place for all of us.
ReplyDeleteEllecee, this is the most beautiful remembering of those beautiful places. Is that your homeland. The vastness, the big sky, the tundra........you make me see them all in your most beautiful poem. My favourite of yours.
ReplyDeleteNo, Sherry, I worked in Nunavut for 10 years, in various communities. It has a special place in my heart.
Delete"Don't let the memories fade"...this poem is so beautiful in its names and images. What an amazing place to grow up.
ReplyDeleteHi Tony, I didn't grow up here, but I spent 10 years in Nunavut in various communities. Thanks for your interest.
DeleteNature's songs are the best and most lasting... Fade they shan't.
ReplyDeleteThank you every one for your kind comments. All comments are greatly appreciated and this month has been wonderful for me reading all of your work. Outstanding ! :-)
ReplyDeleteWow! You evoke it all so deeply, I think my breathing has changed.
ReplyDeleteSo nice, Ellecee. I had to look up the Grise Fiord and I'm glad I did. It verges on Baffin Bay of which I am familiar and also the Northwest Passage which at the present time the Russians are interested in. They navigated it during the winter. With the help of Climate Change I'm sure. A few years ago I was blogging friends with a BBC Science reporter who stayed almost a year with the Eskimos up near here. Google has a map picture of Grise Fiord, Nunavut. I wouldn't like staying there too long. I not long ago removed THE South Pole, Antarctica, from my bucket list. Thanks to you, and Google, for the Geography lesson.
ReplyDelete..
Beautiful. Tundra and Glaciers - they seem so distant to me and therefore, magical.
ReplyDeleteOh! another stunning, glorious Canadian place of mythological magic. I'm drenched in the lush naming of places and essences. These shared memories and poem just makes me appreciate how vast and glorious, how holy and unique Canada is - and make me wonder at the vastness, its greatness, the wealth of climate, culture and peoples - and how one lifetime alone could never be nearly enough time to discover my home. Thank you Ellecee
ReplyDeleteI love these names ~
ReplyDeleteLove the Inuit names together with some who I think might be Norwegian... Alaska? we need to remember
ReplyDeleteI like the way you link the place names with the seasons, Ellecee, and love the images of 'soft tundra / feet fashioning themselves around rocks / and the scent of flowers' and 'snow crunching underfoot, / silence except for the sea's breath / under the ice'. This is definitely my kind of place with: '...glaciers, ice burgs, mountains, /
ReplyDeletepolar bear, whales, and seal'.
Amazing names and a hugely evocative write.
ReplyDelete