KATHLEEN JONES

AIMING FOR ARCHANGEL: LAKE ONEGA

We're far north;
beyond the setting point of the sun
which rims the horizon
as though it could always be summer.

Late July, and the birch trees
shift and shiver at three am
in a wind straight from Murmansk
and the perpetual arctic ice.

From the lake's edge the land seems
to go on forever - beyond politics,
into the impossible distances
of history, where women still

wash their clothes in the stream
and sleep above the stove.
Their children crowd the landing stage
with jars of wild strawberries,

flash stainless-steel teeth
at my bad Russian, show me
their living space above the cows -
a garden fenced with chopped logs,

cellars of potatoes stacked
against the fixed line where the sun sets
and the long winter night closes
over the trees like an eye-lid.