The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: Heaven Underfoot by Diana Woodcock

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LIGHT OF THE MIDNIGHT SUN

How to describe the light
of the midnight sun on these islands
midway between Norway
and the North Pole, covering
sixty-two thousand square kilometers?

Locals claim in the midst of summer,
tiring of one perpetual day,
they begin longing for the darkening
beckoning the start of the long polar night.

At first, I couldn’t quite
believe them, but after a brief
first week, I begin to understand—
light on the sea and land
foiling my grasp of time.

It’s Ramadan, with no moon
to track, no stars to shed silver on
the night. But then of course if
I were here the other side of a year,
no doubt I’d long to feel a trace
of sunshine on my face.

Light these summer nights
here on the open sea, in narrow fjords—
sun’s disk dallying on the horizon’s rim—
has no beginning or end—too much
of a good thing. My inclination
is all things in moderation.

Glaring light pours through my porthole,
thanks to the Earth’s axial tilt
while our tall ship sails on
throughout the ceaseless polar day
under the incessant, gloaming night-
light of a pearl-gray sky

and in the shadow, the silence—
save a drip here, a pop there—
of diminishing ice.

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