Juneau, Alaska

A poem for a stranger with a rugged heart who wants to run away into the wilderness.

Photo by Joris Beugels on Unsplash

JUNEAU, ALASKA

A man came to fix our boiler system this morning,
Velocity was emboldened on the side of his van.
Within minutes of speaking, he showed me
the speed at which hate traveled through him.

There is nothing good left of this world he said,
except in Juneau, Alaska where he planned to retire
but I only heard the word escape crawl out
from between his teeth.

Alaska is God’s country he said, as if the hand
of the divine does not touch anywhere else. He did not
strike me as a man searching for God, only seeking
the farthest place to hide in plain sight.

His eyes, were soft serpentine green, but he was blue-dark,
the trembling lip of the horizon swallowing the light.
I don’t know what kind of cruelness has swept across
the rugged terrain of his heart but I do know

Juneau, isn’t the answer and somewhere
in the shrouded darkness he lives beneath
there is a sun rising toward all there is
to love about this world.

- Ash Kilback