---

In the time before the warming,

when snow and ice and cold

defined us.

When seals blood

was not dense with poison.

Before men who'd never

been freezing

created precise boundaries.

Before it rained during summer.

Before Christian names.

Before our Shaman

had to keep stories hidden.

Before whisky, before smokes,

before children committed suicide.

Before we stopped pinching

the hearts of birds.

Before we stopped wiping

our children clean with our hair,

Before Nanook left

the land that had forever

belonged to him,

there lived the moon whale.

As long as three men,

heavy as two ice bears.

My father could make the same

special whistles, clicks and knocks.

Now the moon whale rots on the sea bed,

a memory of a magic this world

was too weak for.