snow white

i am from
the top of the world
beyond the north pole
where the blinkets live,
winking and nodding.

we reign
fair of face,
dark hair and eyes,
long and lean,
very fine-featured,
and yet we thrive. 

we live in ice palaces
frozen sheer to glass
carved by the moon
in a place where
stones are not thrown. 

we remain
kind of heart
true to our word
playful and creative
loving and warm.

We are the ice princes and princesses.

... face it folks, there was no way to meet michael curry's challenge or even come close.  i chose to do something whimsical.  i am such a "mutt" when it comes to my genealogy.  i wrote this piece in honor of a teacher i had when i was a jr. in high school ... a teacher who made me stop and say ... hmmmm ... more often than not.  i grew up in a very, very german community and i must have stuck out like a sore thumb, looking so not like the majority of my classmates.  one day in class he said there were other people like me, at the top of the world, some of the very first "natives" living in the snowy highlands, tip-top the globe. 

at first, i thought he was picking on me as i pictured the proverbial eskimo woman in history film strips, toothless, face-chapped and chewing on blubber.  i was tall, fair-skinned, with tiny features, dark hair and dark eyes.  i didn't feel or look like an eskimo or an alaskan-native.  he told me to dig deeper and said there was another culture beyond my way of thinking, beyond my education, and i'd have to do some research to see what he meant. 

i'm not sure i ever came upon this particular group of  people in any realm of study, but it was always nice to think that there was someone like me out there loping around in the snow.