Diego Isaias Hernández Méndez, Convertiendse en Characoteles / Sorcerers Changing into Their Animal Forms (detail), 2013, oil on canvas. Arte Maya Tz’utujil Collection.
Insomnia at North
I shall yet have a long sleep
When the dark is at a stand
In the woods. The rocks
Along the ridge
Will no longer ring
Like bells, but will
Become simple, gray
And silent. I will be
Still then, and sleep
As night now sleeps,
Swaying the larch
Outside my window.
It is losing its needles.
Dry slivers of gold
Drop in the tall,
Sheltering grass.
These I shall hurry,
And envy their settle.
Joan Kane is Inupiaq Eskimo, with family from Mary’s Igloo and King Island, Alaska. She graduated from Harvard College and expects to receive her MFA from Columbia in May. Her work has recently appeared or is forthcoming in ICE-FLOE and The Northwest Review. (updated 3/2006)