Aurora of the North
It started with all of us
on a long Grey Line bus
trudging through the spangled night.
The guide said we passed
a “poetry farm” – do they grow Words
over here? Oh, he meant chickens,
obviously.
Then we arrived and the sky
was a Coldplay song
staring down at me, as if daring me
to say, “Life is small and stupid
and I have seen
all there is to see.”
This is how the sky had looked at me.
Like it had a silent lesson,
like a paint-by-numbers picture,
begging me to take a brush.
And then –
Among all this cosmic complexity
somebody down here –
needed a doctor.
A little boy, much smaller than the stars,
but much easier to observe
had fallen on his young face
while exiting the bus.
And so – “Is there a doctor? ..Doctor? …Doctor?”
turned everyone’s attention
temporarily from the Celestial.
Two nurses and a doctor
felt up their way blindly, following the echo,
and then yet again:
Just silent dark silhouettes,
straining to look up
in solemnity.
Until, at last, it got very cold for me.
They say in Iceland – “Keep your ears,
your fingers and your toes warm and the rest
will follow.”
My toes were frost-bitten though
and the rest of me had begun
to follow.
But in this open-air cathedral
it seemed futile
to complain. The two things
our guide impressed:
“You won’t see it
from the bus”
and the other –
“You must be patient.”
Seventy and gray-haired, thick
with Icelandic accent, he annunciated
these things slowly:
I trusted him.
So on I went, instead of back.
Gravel crunched, sounding like
solitude; only a black field looming ahead.
And it dawned on me that
this might be where
the Icelanders grow
their poetry.
Spaced out around me, but a few heads
bobbing on in the darkness.
Suddenly, an orifice:
The wavy emerald curtain!
It draped and draped
itself around the Northern magnet,
a velvet blanket,
while all around me –
little yelps of excitement
peppered the darkness.
On everyone’s mind – a war cry:
“We’ve made it!!
Our shivering collective
isn’t going home
defeated in effort
tonight.”
And the wise old guide smiled, thinking:
“No disgruntled tourists will there be
on this night, muttering that I have
sold them fog, no smug mugs
asking for refunds.”
But on my mind, only this:
“None of this
is ours.”
I love and loathe the fact that
I cannot put these in my pocket.
To pull them out on nights
when I’m convinced
that life just might be
small and stupid.
Iva Ticic is an international artist and teacher originally from Croatia. She has lived on 3 continents and is currently back in New York City, where she hopes to finally settle down. Her preference in poetry is the intimate, the sensual, the musical and the brave. Her upcoming book is titled "The Skywriter" and should be coming out this year with New Meridian Arts. Find her on twitter @IvaHasWords