A Poetry of Place: Dillingham, Alaska / Part 2.

My friend Brook out on Huckleberry Island the day she, her family and I went boating and scavenger hunting.

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Dillingham, Alaska very quickly became a creative home for me. I taught kindergarten there. I crafted a beautiful classroom that was a fusion of Montessori and public education.

Out biking one day, I stumbled upon a small art gallery / shop. Upon entering, I found it to be owned and operated by a fellow classmate in the Masters program I had just completed.

 “Susan?” she asked with a note of surprise in her voice when she saw me standing in the shop’s doorway. Her name is Brook. I soon learned she taught 3rd grade in the same school where I worked. We both did prep work on Saturdays just down the hall from each other. It became this wondrous time of sharing ideas & materials for our individual classrooms and for our creative expression.

I housesat for Brook and her family (and cats) when they were out of town. I painted and wrote at her art desk. Some of which found its way into one magazine or journal, and another. 

In exchange for a sushi dinner, I gave her eldest daughter, Celia,  a watercolor painting lesson. She continues to grow as an artist.

We laughed, watched slides Brook projected onto a hung-up sheet and ate the most delicious, homemade cookies.

In my classroom, all was beautiful, truly. An aesthetically prepared classroom and artistically / academically engaged students. In the community, I volunteered on Saturdays at the  local domestic violence shelter’s store working in their donation room (I wrote great poetry sitting atop black garbage bags stuffed with donated clothing). I made many friends that thankfully still call me that today.

The University of Alaska has a branch in Dillingham, the Bristol Bay Campus. I worked part time there as a front desk clerk, test administrator and adult education support person. 

I had a 4-wheel drive truck that I drove up mountain ways to forage blueberries and low bush cranberries. Too, to drive out to Wood River Market in Aleknagik or down to the beach to watch gill netters pull in one salmon after another.

I thought I’d be there for years to come. Then the pandemic hit. My students left for Spring break and never returned. Family members died. Friends died. Within a course of several weeks two immediate family members passed away, one of which was my step-father Barney. 

The number of fatalities globally and within my family, amongst friends grew. I resigned from my teaching position in late October of 2021. Before I left, Brook and her family took me out on their boat to Huckleberry Island for a farewell meal. Iris found me dried wild irises that rattled with seed and so much more.

I wrote the poem below on my departing plane headed for the East Coast believing at the time I would never return to Alaska. Then, a year and a half later I did. 

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Rattle

   

I check the time.

Two hours left 

of the five-and-a-

half-hour-flight.

Autumn-dried 

wild irises 

collected near 

Huckleberry Island 

by a young girl,

who shares 

the flower’s name,

are flying with me.

In one of three 

checked bags,

their seeds rattle

just as they did 

when she gripped 

the small, foraged bundle

in her raised fist 

and shook them

while holding 

the eagle feather 

she pulled from 

the understory

of a beach pine 

already ornamented 

with cones.

They will spill 

across a patch of 

New England soil. 

The annual blossoms

counting the years 

of no-longer living 

the transplant,

Alaska life.

Given

farewell bouquet,

now future 

flower garden.

Thank you, Iris.

Your mother said 

if anyone could find some

that mid-October evening,

while salmon 

and potatoes, 

both family harvested,

cooked over 

the fire your father made,

it would be you.

Your brother,

Wyatt, favored finding

vintage cans and 

brown, glass bottles

near discarded fish

camp cellars.

Celia, the eldest,

busied herself

collecting large legs of

firewood; the small 

doesn’t beckon her.

I ate heart-shaped 

sugar cookies

baked for this

shared boating 

across the evening 

lake.

A child sitting with

her mother and sister

in the row ahead of me

just slid the window 

shade back declaring,

“What a pretty sky out there.”

Her voice rattled 

behind her flowered cloth

COVID mask.

One hour remains.

Susan Slocum Dyer / © SSD

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