1st Movement
Taki was beautiful.
I use the word beautiful in the sense of the old Latin phrase ESSE QUAM VIDERII, to be is more important than to appear, the essence is more important than the video.
She was beautiful on the outside.
Black hair the color of moonless, starless nights.
Brown eyes the color of turned earth.
Dark skin the color of bark on the ancient trees below Point Hope.
She was beautiful on the inside.
Warm heart beating slowly and steadily in the arctic cold.
Nimble mind thinking deeply and widely of ways she could help the world.
Courageous soul undeterred by the frozen, rocky land.
Her family's house was made of yellow painted wooden slats with a red tin roof.
A small chimney rose slightly through the center of it's ridge.
It sat on the edge of the pack ice beside the Chukchi Sea.
There were four windows, one for each side of the house.
She sat by the fire in the front room, warming herself against the cold.
She looked out over the sea.
The moon reflected off it's surface.
Broken ice moved ever so slowly with the tide.
Whales sang to each other in the deep reaches of the water.
She sighed at the beauty of it all.
She stared at the horizon.
She was silent.
She listened.
She heard a whistle from the sea.
It was the song of a bowhead whale.
"There is a boy," sang the great whale, "Who is coming to you."
"To me?" whistled Taki.
"How does he know where I am?
How will he get here?
How will he find me?
It is so far.
"He is listening," sang the mysterious whale.
"He is listening."
2nd Movement
She saw him standing on the rocks that connected her land with the water.
The wind blew off the icy sea and whipped his brown face until it looked as if it might become a part of the rocks, salt and water that make up the Arctic landscape.
The three shirts and one coat he owned weren't enough to protect him from the cold, so the skin of his cheeks and the water in his eyes froze with the night.
"He looks so small against the sky and the sea," she thought.
"He seems so weak against the rocks and the ground."
Small, weak things struggled to survive around the Chukchi Sea, she knew.
Her heart was big and strong, and that's what helped her live in this icy cold place.
"His heart must be big and strong, too," she thought as she took the lantern from the window and went out to guide him in."
3rd Movement
Taki's poem for Hilcias
we
stand
closely
side by side
I reach out for you
and take your hand inside of mine
our fingers intertwine and our palms make a small space
this space is warm in the midst of the deep snow that covers the frozen ground of Point Hope
is warm against the icy wind that blows off the rocking waters of the Chukchi Sea
"life is in these small spaces between us," I whisper
we stand quietly hand in hand
with the small space, and
then we smile
holding
small
space
- Trevor Scott Barton, stories for a brown eyed girl, 2020
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