Juneau, Alaska, 2012
White water from the falls cascades into
The ruffled silver lake that spreads below
The great ice river called Aakwtaaksit
By generations of the native Tlingit,
Who say the glacier warns them in advance
And speaks to them of crevices and avalanche.
“Follow the line of bright green Sitka spruce,”
The guide instructs: “Where trees are dark there was
No ice but lighter where the glacier once
Plowed its way through valleys and the Tongass.”
Two miles has the glacier withdrawn
In a single human lifespan.
The great white goddess wandered far,
Bequeathed to us the land and water,
Now pronounces thunder, now repeats
Her warning in her strophe of retreat.
One day, when all these tragic ones are gone,
No one but bear and eagle here to listen
To her oracle, she may announce again
The great antistrophe of her return.
—
Deborah Fleming’s nonfiction collection Resurrection of the Wild won the PEN-America Art of the Essay Award for 2020. Her second nonfiction collection Ghosts of an Old Forest will be available in 2025. She has also published one novel, five books of poetry, four volumes of scholarship, and stories, poems, essays, and articles in journals. Three of her poems have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes. Recipient of grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities and National Council of Learned Societies, she served for many years as editor and director of the Ashland Poetry Press.
