Fairbanks

On this August day the streets of Fairbanks

are filled with the current symbols of Alaska,

far more totem than the old time poles

ever were,  as they crawl down the narrow streets.

Badly beaten up things they are, dirty and rusted

and noisy, with spare tires tied on their sides and

their front and their rear, and most of them sport 

an antler-spread of gasoline cans that are fixed to a rack

up on their roof.

Outside of town it's quiet, except for the wind which is trying to

tell us something that we can’t get.  But it’s not good.

There is a slit-eyed endurance here that goes far

beyond the touristial glance, as the face of Alaska slowly

emerges to remind us that there is no Middle here.

This is a land of rocks and weeds, of endless light

and endless dark, and people are not necessary. 

So if your life is not measured in either weeks or eons, 

you need to move on. 

Fairbanks, August 2, 1968