. . . for John Haines, who did what I only dreamed.

His "The Stars, The Snow, The Fire" is the remarkable

account of it.

All these years I have been setting out to where it was

You would go, and farther, fingers traveling our frayed

Map west and then north almost to the edge of everything,

Past Fort Yukon and Coldfoot into that white space

Where Deadhorse lay on the other side of my hand,

Crossing the blue friezes of the Tanana and Kobuk,

Noatak and Koyukuk, all the names that seemed

To mean ice and emptiness and all the landmarks

Shifting with wind-blown snow that never settles

Into anywhere familiar, though I know every inch.

Once I would have gone, taking nothing with me,

Needing nothing but all that I would come to

Hunting and fishing and trapping, learning from

The Tlingit and Inupiat and Aleut the ways of

Seal and bear and moose and salmon, how to

Trust the path the dogs make, which wood to cut

For fire and which will take the shape of canoe,

How to bend and weave snowshoes, carve the slits

In the bone mask to keep from going snow-blind.

All these things I have done with you without doing,

Gone without going, falling asleep in the dream

Of the map, following the tracks in the snow.