by Sandy Wickersham-McWhorter

Modern-day windjammers ply the solid water of the Arctic North
When the day’s glowing orb is stingy with its warming light,
Teasing living creatures with the promise of brighter days yet months away,
And during endless Stygian nights when aurora borealis entertains these steel machines’
Pilots with curtains of electric color.
These raucous windjammers deliver sustenance to those wresting from the cold Earth’s bosom
That substance which refracts light into rainbows and dazzles human eyes.
The pilots endure endless icy trips on the solid water in their intrepid vessels,
Dependable, relentless in their slow trek south to north, in swift returns north to south.
Camaraderie keeps the pilots safe, but when one vessel breaks down on the solid water,
All behind it stop. The stricken pilot calls his fellows and navigator and waits for rescue.
The pilot looks behind his vessel, into the endless night.
Other ships line up single file behind him, each a safe distance apart, engines idling, waiting.
Now, the inky blackness isn’t lit by moon, star, or aurora, but by the windjammers’ themselves. An ethereal yellow light cocoons them in the glow of their own headlamps.
The glow mingles with the cloud of white smoke their engines emit,
hovering low over these hearty wayfarers’ machines.
An icy, raging wind trails the smoke behind them, and the metal ships seem to be moving,
Yet, they can’t move until their stricken comrade is in motion again.
Not allowed to shut off the furnace that drives their ship, these pilots sit in their vessels,
Hoping, praying that their fuel lasts, that they don’t break through the solid water’s surface
And be lost in the dark depths below. Praying for God’s compassion and protection for all.
The North is silent this Stygian night, except for the metal ships’ engines humming, idling, warming the pilots, making music. The melodic rumble is music that sings safety to the pilots. The music of life. The music of the far Canadian North.
When the stricken pilot’s vessel moves again, one by one, his fellows follow him
Into the night to complete their deliveries and return to the diamond capital of North America,
To rest until their metal windjammer convoy must again sail on the solid water around them.

by Sandy Wickersham-McWhorter

“Ever doubling back, ever advancing, ever moving in the sky’s blackness
at the poles of Earth,
the Dawn of the North Wind makes herself known.
Humans who are intimate with Aurora Borealis, adore her psychedelic lights when they’re
vulnerable to the Arctic’s winter anger.
Yet, they risk it to see her royal night dance when solar flares ravage the solar system.
Her dancing clothes crown the pole with lithe curtains of light moving in the sky.
Electric particles ride the seams of her magnetic garment down to Earth
to collide with oxygen and nitrogen in the air and dance together
until their voltage must be discharged in a Learyesque light show.
Electric emerald, magenta, and azure fold the sky above,
greeting those who watch the dance with awe and wonder, and fear.
Does understanding the science of Aurora’s dance lessen the magic of her spell,
or does it make her ever more alluring? Myth and legend some may say,
but Aurora will take us with her
if we whistle for her some cold ethereal night in the snow.”