Kersten Christianson
Curating the House of Nostalgia
by Kersten Christianson
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Kersten Christianson derives inspiration from wild, wanderings, and road trips. 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). Additionally, she is the poetry editor of the quarterly journal, Alaska Women Speak. Kersten lives in Sitka, Alaska where she keeps an eye on the tides, shops Old Harbor Books, and hoards smooth ink pens.
The Leeward Side of the Mountain
Late summer density, a pending front
undulates, weaves through high valleys,
to hover among crags and peaks. I’m no
orographer, but when it rains, it floods,
enough buckets of tears to drop, slide,
shift mountains thought otherwise solid.
Weeks of nagging, cajoling, reminders
to pack this, clean that, don’t forget…,
and she’s gone on a southbound ferry.
Occasional photos land by text: eye-level
sunset clearing the ferry’s rail, washing
the tent’s interior in light; the cat, five-days
kenneled, pacing new space; used Fiestaware
in ROYGBIV stacked on a knick-knack table
in a secondhand store. I’m not certain why
I’ve chosen to stay on in this empty house
of echo and memory, to wash my one used dish
after each meal, pursue his encouragement
of Elks membership, tinker away at a new job.
I hold my fortunes close, used to Scotch tape
them in a journal I burned on Bishop’s Beach
in Homer. Now these paper harbingers, fluke
of written-word kismet, fortune, and numbers,
are stored in the bowl-shallow saucers
of lenticular clouds, organized by wonder-luck,
repetition, and by the grammatically incorrect.
I hold my fortunes close, paper, or otherwise,
and wonder where I’ll wander in a year.
