Northern People

Dec 13 2019

The damp air

of a midwinter thaw,

and in the dismal dark

of late afternoon

the chill cuts to the marrow.

How unlike

the recent cold snap,

when the sky was high and dry

and such a luminous blue

it made your eyes water.

When the snow had that clean bright squeak

and reassuring grip

of real winter

beneath our heavy treads.

Now, sloppy and slick

the thawing snow is treacherous;

the forest trails impassable,

floors soiled with grit

from tracked-in salt and sand.

Yes, the living is easy

in such relative warmth,

but in this flat grey light

under leaden cloud

the spirit feels dull

and claustrophobic.

In Siberia

the permafrost, too, is melting,

exposing the bones of ancient animals

the long-dead bodies of men.

Even hair and skin,

saved

from decomposition

and hidden from sight.

And just as the ancient snows

of millennial winter

preserve and conceal,

we northern people

are as unrevealing

of our cryptic inner lives.

Taciturn, and introvert

we are quiet and shy,

keeping our secrets

from even ourselves.

So, will this unseasonable weather

loosen our tongues?

Will we become

like our warm-blooded cousins

in the tropical south,

who laugh and dance and touch

express so freely their love?

I suspect not.

It will take more heat and sun than this

to turn us soft,

to sufficiently thaw

our reserve and repression.

Because we still refrain from talk.

Still balk

at opening up.

Still walk with our heads down

and eyes averted

in this admittedly treacherous slush,

jackets undone

but still holding our tongues

and keeping our hands to ourselves.

As in all stereotypes, there is a kernel of truth that accompanies the reductive generalization. So I think there is some validity to this idea of a northern temperament: taciturn, restrained, even repressed.

(But then, there is an equally disparaging stereotype that attaches itself to southerners: that the heat makes them soft in the head, not quite as sharp or ambitious as we are. And there is a connotation of moral turpitude, as well: that the carnal heat and humidity are conducive to sins of the flesh. So, are we really more moral? ...Or perhaps it's just that we do it inside, behind closed doors!)

I wasn't at all enthusiastic when I started writing this poem. As often happens, I was in the mood to write – after enough coffee and some good intensive reading, it feels as the words are all dammed-up in me and demanding to be released – but with no idea what. So I halfheartedly started-in on another mundane weather poem: hardly of interest to readers, not really worthy of another poem, and probably something I've already written. But, as often also happens, stream of consciousness took over and this poem ended up writing itself. As it turns out, not at all a poem about weather, but rather one about the temperament of northern people: how our inner ice reflects the cold environment we inhabit.