Hello, Juneau. Smell that? Love is in the air! And love’s second favorite holiday, after the Reverend singer Al Green’s birthday on April 13, is coming up soon. Singles awareness day, St. Valentine’s, Whitman Chocolate Penny Stock Boom Day, whatever you want to call it. And it’s here in a week and change. Although, really you should just call it a week and keep the change because you may need it for balloons, teddy bears or Ferrero Rochers.<\/p>\n
My fiancée and I try our level best to save money on these sorts of holidays and get crafty with the handmade gifts, but in order to keep from utterly slighting ol’ Mr. Saint Valentino, we probably will still give the holiday the nod by hitting up the movie theater for something. La La Land, maybe. Or John Wick Chapter 2: Double the Barrels Double the Damage. Let’s flip a coin! Heads, I win; tails, you lose?<\/p>\n
Kidding. Underworld: Blood Wars it is.<\/p>\n
Anyway. All seriousness aside, my only stated goal in this column is to focus on the changes in our town, and also the things that don’t change. Yeah, I know, that’s about a broad spectrum as writing about everything that is blue but also everything that isn’t, or writing about movie characters Gary Oldman could play if he wanted, but I take it as a call to pay some special attention to those things one might miss in this town if you weren’t looking.<\/p>\n
(Speaking of which, am I the only one who wonders what that darn blue thing is out in the middle of the wetlands between Sunny Point and the airport? OK, maybe I am.) However, in the spirit of the upcoming holiday of love and my column’s vision, I’d like to offer a love poem I’ve written to Juneau, the land of the Tlingit and the town I know. Happy Valentine’s, Juneau!<\/p>\n
Dear Juneau,<\/em><\/p>\n I love the way you move<\/em><\/p>\n the way you settle into tidal zones<\/em><\/p>\n the way you bend in the wind<\/em><\/p>\n the way you arch your mossy back<\/em><\/p>\n in the wake of a glacier’s icy pressure<\/em><\/p>\n the way you slip away<\/em><\/p>\n into valleys<\/em><\/p>\n and rivers<\/em><\/p>\n leaving stripes of raw mud and water<\/em><\/p>\n running down your side<\/em><\/p>\n I love the way you make us move asphalt and trade routes around you<\/em><\/p>\n tracing your foothills and mountain edges<\/em><\/p>\n the way you lift off into zephyrs<\/em><\/p>\n and dust the evening with your sultry pollen<\/em><\/p>\n the way you make little burrows and tree bank bedsides<\/em><\/p>\n the way you force your way nose first into the climbing cold streams<\/em><\/p>\n just to die in the clear shallow and raise the smell of your white flesh<\/em><\/p>\n to the drooping hemlock tops. Dear Juneau,<\/em><\/p>\n I love the way you fall and shatter<\/em><\/p>\n like crumbles of red dirt to grow life in your deadness<\/em><\/p>\n The way you pull up frost and snow around you<\/em><\/p>\n to muffle your angles and curves<\/em><\/p>\n I love the way you glide over ocean and air currents<\/em><\/p>\n the way you bleed on the moss,<\/em><\/p>\n leaving the blood and film of birth to soak in the rain.<\/em><\/p>\n The way you freeze into terrifying shapes<\/em><\/p>\n the way you tumble and thunder at night down deadly mountainsides<\/em><\/p>\n the way you flap your wings<\/em><\/p>\n from the bulbous tops of trees, sloughing little feathers onto the beach.<\/em><\/p>\n the way you swell with fireweed and lupine in the field<\/em><\/p>\n and buzz from flowers, each to each.<\/em><\/p>\n The way you seep into puddles spilling into puddles spilling into rivulets<\/em><\/p>\n that spill into the bay that spill into me<\/em><\/p>\n The way you soak my clothes when I walk through the blueberry patch<\/em><\/p>\n The way you break through the southern side of trees in the morning<\/em><\/p>\n to clarify the stream in little bars and patches<\/em><\/p>\n The way you call out with whines and grunts<\/em><\/p>\n and smell of musk in the brown meadow<\/em><\/p>\n the way you unfold your spiny leaves<\/em><\/p>\n and drive yourself into my skin, saying<\/em><\/p>\n keep me.<\/em><\/p>\n The way you drop from the stem<\/em><\/p>\n and swallow yourself into worms and beetles<\/em><\/p>\n and scatter my garden into your fringes<\/em><\/p>\n I love the way you whistle through mine shafts,<\/em><\/p>\n and drip from the stone forms of old buildings.<\/em><\/p>\n I love the way you eat us up, Juneau.<\/em><\/p>\n I love the way you watch me from trees with black conceited eyes<\/em><\/p>\n I love the way you draw yourself up into the mountains<\/em><\/p>\n like a secret.<\/em><\/p>\n I love the way you drip from the teeth and the stem:<\/em><\/p>\n the way you blend your drinks<\/em><\/p>\n the way you listen and the way you invite listening.<\/em><\/p>\n Juneau, I don’t know what to call you.<\/em><\/p>\n Juneau some days I wish you’d just name me.<\/em><\/p>\n Juneau, when I had my first kiss,<\/em><\/p>\n you folded us both into your mossy lips.<\/em><\/p>\n I love the way you float on the air, heavy like a corpse.<\/em><\/p>\n I love the way you wash little shells from around my feet,<\/em><\/p>\n the way you cling to the rocks<\/em><\/p>\n and throw yourself on buoys<\/em><\/p>\n the way you skate the sandy floor of<\/em><\/p>\n the cold grey water<\/em><\/p>\n the way you crawl onto rocks<\/em><\/p>\n to die in the heat of low tide<\/em><\/p>\n the way you welcome me<\/em><\/p>\n with low hanging branches<\/em><\/p>\n and high-bush berries<\/em><\/p>\n and waterfalls<\/em><\/p>\n and the danger<\/em><\/p>\n of falling<\/em><\/p>\n or freezing<\/em><\/p>\n of looking too long too close<\/em><\/p>\n