Living Through the Dark by Sandra Sidman Larson

Living Through the Dark

Sandra Sidman Larson

Oulu, Finland

1.
An old woman, snug in a pom
pom wool hat and dressed
in denim, staples ski poles
into frozen ground, ignoring
the November sun resting
on the town's shoulder. I watch
her and the mute gulls congregating
in the near distance above the still-open
Oulu River. As the sun sinks, even darkness
does not stop her, or the other skiers,
and I wonder where they are going in the dark.

2.
My fellow officemates, engineers,
John, Tom, and Frank, sit here in this Finnish
night, bathed in blue auras emitted
from their computer screens,
they juggle calls to US headquarters
passing on strategies to speed
data, information, voices around
around the world. They talk about
improvements to wireless connections.

3.
A diffuse, tar-colored light penetrates
the near night. Light radiates from
a large clock face mounted on the spire
of the old Oulu Cathedral across the plaza,
and intensifies a pale path between us as if
it were offering some encouragement
for those who stay up late, living
through the dark.

Sandra Sidman Larson has published in numerous journals. Naomi Shihab Nye nominated her for a Pushcart Price as did the editors of the The Literary Bohemian. She has three chapbooks to her credit, Whistling Girls and Cackling Hens and Over a Threshold of Roots, both published by Pudding House Press, Columbus Ohio, and Calendar Poems, a self-published chapbook. She is the former founder and director of the ADC Telecommunications Foundation.

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