Poetry by Chad Musick
Dreaming in Alaska
We lie on a thin shell of snow,
refrozen after the day’s thaw,
crackling purple sky above us.
Strange as it might seem,
there are places, I’ve heard,
where the sky is both silent and dark,
where the nights are both warm and dark.
Places where the sun
sets every day of summer
rises every day of winter.
Places where the trees
are thick-trunked upright monsters,
not obnoxious drunkards
tripping on words and permafrost.
Places, even, where white powder
falling from the sky
is certainly ash.
Maybe we can go there sometime,
just to see.
We lie on a thin shell of snow,
refrozen after the day’s thaw,
crackling purple sky above us.
Strange as it might seem,
there are places, I’ve heard,
where the sky is both silent and dark,
where the nights are both warm and dark.
Places where the sun
sets every day of summer
rises every day of winter.
Places where the trees
are thick-trunked upright monsters,
not obnoxious drunkards
tripping on words and permafrost.
Places, even, where white powder
falling from the sky
is certainly ash.
Maybe we can go there sometime,
just to see.
Chad Musick is an editor and mathematician with a smattering of published poems. He lives in Japan with his family. During the day he tames language, and at night he lets it loose to roam and grow wild.
