The air itself the last four days
has been like that coating,
huge fires approaching giving it a dusky
weight which strong winds sometimes
clear to a sky darkened to a blue I've
never seen,
the sunlight scattered by so many trillion
microscopic particles.
"All of western Labrador is on fire,"
says the Inuit I'm with, and one realizes.
how this place is elemental in the oldest.
and newest sense:
a geologist's bonanza and open record,
it is also uncompromisingly air, water,
land, fire, and each one, and the effect of
each on each, charitably.
The duskiness called bloom,
Which coats the blueberries and is
removed by handling to reveal an
undershine, is, I think, part of history.
When the Vikings saw the brushes like
vines laden with powdery clusters,
and never having seen this crop before,
they thought them grapes,
and called this harsh and more to come
for those who tried to make a home or
visit, even to these very days of my stay.
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