CHATOYANT Part1

        The air itself the last four days 

             has been like that coating, 

 huge fires approaching giving it a dusky 

  weight which strong winds sometimes    

clear to a sky darkened to a blue I've 

                        never seen, 

the sunlight scattered by so many trillion 

               microscopic particles. 

    "All of western Labrador is on fire,"

says the Inuit I'm with, and one realizes. 

how this place is elemental in the oldest.        

                 and newest sense: 

a geologist's bonanza and open record, 

it is also uncompromisingly air, water, 

land, fire, and each one, and the effect of

          each on each, charitably. 

         The duskiness called bloom,

    Which coats the blueberries and is 

    removed by handling to reveal an 

 undershine, is, I think, part of history. 

When the Vikings saw the brushes like 

   vines laden with powdery clusters, 

and never having seen this crop before, 

           they thought them grapes,

 and called this harsh and more to come 

for those who tried to make a home or 

visit, even to these very days of my stay. 

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