Taku winds. Temperamental snow. Yadaa.at Kalé,
the mountain’s beautiful face,
sheered to her shoulders. Fracture line, snowriver, flank,
unstable mass breaking free. Sluff, slab
throwing its weight into momentum.
Clouds of crystals,
forest flotsam and splinters.
And within a season, nettles. Snags become nesting holes.
By the next, elderberry, alder, seedling spruce. Detritivores
blow in, decay, and recycle. What is taken
is given back.
Every avalanche notched
in the trees that survive. What is known: probability,
eventuality. A slide path into the urban. Home-
making. Right angles, shingles, gypsum.
The north end of the high school. The question now,
what weight will warmer, wetter have.
Oh, but optimism. How it takes over.
—
Mistee St. Clair is a Rasmuson Foundation and Alaska Literary Award grantee and has been published by The Alaska Quarterly Review, The Common, Northwest Review, SWWIM Every Day, and more. She is of European and Tanana Athabascan descent and is an enrolled tribal member of the Native Village of Minto. She lives in Lingít Aaní (Juneau), where she hikes, writes, wanders the mossy rainforest, and is an editor for the Alaska State Legislature.
