If you open the window
the northern lights
might walk inside,
he says to me, barely
rousing from sleep,
while shards of light
cascade against the sky.
Even as chard holds fast in the garden,
cabbage takes a hundred days to form,
counting down summer’s last stretch
while first frost threatens,
a leaf forming every few days,
gripping her nutritious fist
green upon green upon green.
Ground and sky—
we live on foot between
those two places that know first
when autumn scampers forward—
listening as aspen tops yellow,
raspberries drop, and rose hips
darken the season in our hands.
Our bruised shoulders, stacking
wood, food, goods for winter,
sunlight back-tracking south,
the last thing comprehensible
as he drowses back to sleep—
no wonder we were animists
all wonder, no wonder.
This poem is excerpted from Between Latitudes, Michelle Latvala’s debut collection of poetry rooted in both the practice of forging a life in the boreal forest of Alaska and finding footing in contemporary California. The collection provides a window into our complex human experience through Latvala’s vast emotional and poetic range as she explores interior and exterior lives across generations, latitude lines, and a changing climate. Green Writers Press, 2025.
