All ice and yet so warm,

No soul yet full of charm.

Tis definitely the earth’s cocoon and chrysalis,

Home to the iridescent butterfly Borealis.

Many a mighty river, formed from but a solitary tear,

Of an exuberant, but constantly weeping glacier.

To be learnt from their beauty, there’s much, oh so much,

Blue fire in their belly, yet cold to the touch.

With the coming of spring, and some warmth in the weather,

Mother Hubbard gives birth with some glee.

With a hiss and a crackle, at the end of their tether,

The newborn chunks tumble down to the sea.

Given up for dead, yet meant for the living,

A toll while it takes, so generous in giving.

Oh, Alaska doth give, both wet and dry lairs,

It gives to the whales, it gives to the bears.

It gives to the young, it gives to the old,

There’s oil and diamonds, there even is gold.

To call this place heaven, even that wont suffice,

You can walk here on water, you just call it ice.

Now, a fond memory is all that I’ve got,

Of a perfect landscape, ne’er a blot

Sometimes I hear, and sometimes not,

The flowers singing “forget me not”.

 Copyright ©2003 Sundaram Srinivasan

Notes:

“Alaska” was written to express the pure joy and oneness that my wife, Meena , felt on her first Alaskan visit. Her absolute enjoyment of nature in its entire splendor was as fascinating as Alaska itself. We had been on a week’s cruise to Alaska and the poem is an attempt to capture in words the beauty that our eyes saw. For those who have not had the fortune to visit this absolute “ heaven on earth”, Hubbard refers to the mighty Hubbard Glacier, Borealis to the Northern Lights and the state flower of Alaska is the “forget-me-not”.