Two Dogs Ago by Michelle Latvala

Two Dogs Ago
by Michelle Latvala

Two dogs ago,
I bid on a scrap of land
long before tending a houseplant,
trudging ten-acre plots of forest in Alaska,
a decade into an affair
with a state not my own,
inexplicable to all who loved me
except my father,
whose Finnish blood stood
the first time he stepped foot here,
proving we’ll all cross latitude lines
to find a way home.
 
Two dogs later,
during early morning light
that looks like night,
Alaska nonchalantly flops
out her dress-up clothes—
thrums of green aurora
shrouding northwestern sky,
half-moon blooming
through southern snowfields,
a pulse deep in my ear.
  
I stay outside
until I reach middle age,
and some other voice says
start a fire
start coffee
start something that is already here.

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I love Michelle so much, both her personhood and her poetry. I met her through a program I was faculty for, and she is a delight to co-facilitate with. This is from her inaugural book, Latitudes, and I love this poem for the sense of time, the sense of nature, the ripening of wisdom that comes to us in our 50s. Start something already here.