KIAQPUK One long, magenta summer night On the implacable shores of the Bering Sea, Old Kiaqpuk told me stories. He spoke, suspicious-eyed, of Inyukons, Ghostly indian villains of Eskimo myth Who lurk in dark-time willow brakes And cause the unexplained. He spoke, too, of how his grandfather Had taught him to survive on berries And on grain stored in mouse nests. He told me of how the Quakers had come And given brothers different white names. He told me that, long ago, He had trained his dogs to pull His boat to town, laden with dried fish He had caught and butchered, Describing in minute detail How to steer the boat with a single oar To keep it from beaching And the dogs out of the water. He called me, again and again, "Missourian," making the word hiss and stretch As his drunken tongue refused control, And told me repeatedly, matter-of-factly, Of his addiction to drugs and alcohol And time spent in detox And jobs lost. And he told me, eyes distant, As though looking back through time, How he had once watched a mouse Playing in the water of some tundra lake While he sat, holding his breath, In the nearby willows, As it dove and splashed and swam And dove and splashed and swam again. He told me, too, how his teachers Used to hit him with a ruler When his English failed to come. Then he laughed at the irony Of Eskimo kids learning Inupiaq in school And white kids taking the Inupiaq prizes. But the laugh did not sparkle, Nor did his eyes. His nose bled as he talked And drool ran from his toothless mouth. I offered him a paper towel, Which he did not merely toss away But put, stumblingly, in my trash To keep the beaches clean. Kiaqpuk went away for a few hours To sleep and, I think, to drink more. When he came again, he said, Eyes shining in weathered face, That he didn't know why he liked me. Nor did I. Before he left again, he gave me A beautiful piece of raw jade And I began to understand why, As he had said so many times That singular arctic night, "Everyone likes old Kiaqpuk." Loveable old Kiaqpuk, Gray and toothless and frail, Who lectured me on arctic ecology And how to bootleg without risking arrest; Gray and toothless; malnourished and frail; Caught in the white man's snare Of Christian names and alcohol But able to admire a sunset; Wizened old Kiaqpuk, Who had lived only 50 years.