The Diomedes

Summers he would cruise for Gold country
working the crabbers as deckhand or kitchen;
pre-winters getting back with old-climate accounts of
shellfish catchers, fur catchers, and the twin isles
of Diomede: two miles and a landmass between them;
furthermore, how, in winter, when the waterways froze solid,
the islanders could stroll from one to the next,
crossing the sheet for family, scrimshaw,
soapstone, to wed, passing the date line
that went through the channel, venturing
between days as they went.

To the extent that I realize he doesn't return;
assuming he did, he'd hear that just the brave
presently track by walking, the pack as of now not reliable
for walrus, ski-plane or the human step.

Indeed, even presently, there's something to his story
I view as hard to comprehend. At home, in London,
paying attention to my neighbors' raised voices
or on the other hand getting the man inverse dressing,
I can't help thinking about how it is we will be friendly,
how part of us yearns for it to issue that much,
to poke our skin-boat into the waves,
to be among floe and another;
most of the way from home, in no well-being, uncertain
assuming we're set out toward tomorrow or yesterday.