Homeland featured on Good Reads!

The Man Beneath the Tundra

He lies in a cradle of ice                                      

in the Arctic earth,                                                

sailor from an expedition lost

more than a century ago.  The researchers

pour water over the block that fills

his coffin.  Slowly, slowly, the face

surfaces:  eyes open, mouth pulled

into a grin by starvation,

the skin leather-brown.  Yet

he is not frightening, looks almost                             

friendly, as though he doesn’t mind,                  

even welcomes this intrusion.

They lift the loosening arms, examine

his quaint clothing.  I peer at the underside



of my fascination:  Don’t we all

want to surface through the ice

of our cautiousness, to be lifted

by gentle, knowledgeable men and women                                            in The MadisonReview

who say of course, this was the problem,

here is the explanation.                                                                        & in Color Documentary

Don’t we want to see ourselves

delivered from the glacier of grief

that swept us under, whose dimensions,

direction, and origin we could never

fathom?  Thawed, freed, and smiling

Hello, hello

to the kind doctors

or angels or better yet, our tomorrow’s

selves, those hard-borne children,

faces stamped with our clear, untroubled

features.  Yes, you did, they say,

in spite of the climate.  Yes, we can!