Kersten Christianson
Curating the House of Nostalgia
by Kersten Christianson
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Alaskan Poet, Moon Gazer, Raven Watcher, Northern Trekker, Teacher. Kersten Christianson derives inspiration from wild, wanderings, and road trips. Kersten is the poetry editor of Alaska Women Speak. She has authored Curating the House of Nostalgia (Sheila-Na-Gig, 2020), What Caught Raven’s Eye (Petroglyph Press, 2018), and Something Yet to Be Named (Kelsay Books, 2017). Kersten lives with her daughter in Sitka, Alaska and enjoys road trips, bookstores, and smooth ink pens.
Cosmic Harvesting
Not quite lucky wishbone
nor water divining rod,
but there it sat like a stone,
a discarded moose leg in the road
at the corner of the Carcross
Community Center.
It made me think of Gloria’s
moose hoof windchimes,
heavy keratin clop-clopping
in the wind as if still plodding
through grass, fireweed, one foot
after another, wood-throaty
as if bamboo, strung with blue-eyed
beads, tinny bells. I read recently
that sometimes a tuft of green
hair can be found near a moose’s
hoof. I wanted to turn around,
drive the grizzly-road back
to Carcross, to look more closely
for this anomaly, this flash
of cut tendon, bone, early leaf.
This Is Not a Love Poem
It rains in Whitehorse
and children still frequent-flood
the playground, their screams,
laughter, a raucous
murder of ravens mid-hop,
feigned flight. And because
it rains in Whitehorse,
I ache to scrawl love poems
for my not-in-love,
whisper in his ear
the beauty of dried morels,
spicy dill pickles,
northern gifts soon delivered
to where I’ll find him waiting.
