Susan Chase-Foster A Triptych of Illuminations

Vol. 12 No. 2

Susan Chase-Foster

A Triptych of Illuminations

I. Circle Hot Springs, Alaska

Most of us were asleep when the wolf wails cut through our dreams, two, three, five, eight, a Fibonacci of howls and hoots a nebula of Canis lupus songs spiraling around us, an invitation to forget it was negative 40, we were unfurred, we would likely freeze if we stepped outside in our flannel pajamas.

But who can resist the call of the pack?

We raced barefoot across snow, shape-shifting, yipping ancient hymns under the undulating curtain of shimmering green energy until the pain in our naked paws brought us to our senses and we padded back to the cabin, wrapped ourselves in qiviut blankets, fell into four-footed dreams.

II. Bahia de Banderas, Mexico

When the wind ceased clattering palm fronds and no-see-ums had not yet arrived for their evening meal, we’d trot to the beach, each with a bottle of Scotch, flop against the brick wall, our toes tucked in a blanket of warm sand and gaze across the sapphire sea to the edge of the world, waiting for the green flash at sunset. It never came, the flash, though the sun set religiously.

But the moon always arrived, sometimes a golden sliver of Cheshire Cat smile, sometimes a hibiscus moon, red and dripping like a street dog’s tongue. Only once, as Luna glowed green and luminous as the Northern Lights, we toasted her.

III. Mount Cook, New Zealand

That still and silent Southern Hemisphere night at Aoraki, the three-summit, cloud-piercing glacial mass of South Island prominence, a celestial light of startling intensity burst through the lens of our cabin window, flooding us awake, insisting we merge

(or be blinded by awe)

with two swirling arms splashing and smearing billions of suns and planets, glistering green gas clouds and all manner of matter into a spiral of cosmic milk, bright-white as dawn on a blanket of spring snow, an eye-melting swath of illumination in the vast dilation of night.