The portal for all my traveling has opened north,
And this time, all the planning, the map-plotting, the packing,
The frazzled anticipation, and all the mileage
Has ended up here, just where I had hoped:
At an ending of all the roadage.
Snow Lake, Manitoba might not add up to so much
Population-wise, and on a map
It might not look so very remote.
But it is as far north as Route 392 runs.
Follow your nose here,
And stand upon the permafrost at the very end of the road,
Take a deep breath and look due north.
It stretches as far as anyone could wonder,
A horizontal Gothic Cathedral with stained glass windows
Of high latitude polarized light.
Imagination is pulled like a lodestone
Straight north along the 100th Meridian to the Pole, and on this passage,
Your visions will encounter no human settlements
And see more lakes than people.
The road stops but it’s at a live end,
A glimpse into the best of all our possibilities:
Terra Incognita.
