This poem is inspired by one of the prettiest roads I’ve ever seen in Alaska or anywhere else. The Nome-Teller Highway stretches from Nome to the village of Teller, and made me lose my breath at every stretch with its mountains, lakes, and golden tundra. An image popped into my head, I wrote this.

The Teller Road

The Faerie King has sown his gold

The result of that’s the Teller Road.

He took his gold dust, nuggets, the lot

And searched about for an idea spot.

He searched high and he searched low

But it was Alaska last,

Where he turned his hoe.

He took his seeds of gold dust fine

That he had gotten from a mine.

He piled them all in sacks, very rare,

Of woven starshine and spirits’ hair.

He piled them all on a great big plow

Pulled by big dragons with fire in tow.

He piled them up in a great big show

And with a silver blade made of moon, 

he began to sow.

He strode first to the spacious downs and

 planted clumps of gold in little towns.

Shining, laughing, dancing, and waving

The gold grew up, all bright and living.

He threw some gold dust to the wind

And they the great, grim mountains tinged.

He took fat nuggets: one, two three

And placed them tall against the sea.

And they formed a yellow lee

And reached their heads, tall as trees.

He pulled bits of burnt-out sun to Earth 

(all soft and brown)

And with those burnt tufts he lined the turf

 (like piles of down)

To give the smallest seedlings birth.

And they grew up in a song:

Loud rhythms of brown and gold

That stretched all the fair road long

A haze of stories told.

Gold grew in patches

Gold grew in batches.

Gold grew in little 

select snatches

Along the Teller Road.

It grew by lakes of melted diamond 

It grew to gild the the fair, soft white sand.

Along the Teller Road.

It’s brassy, glassy, glaze

made the sky stop to gaze.

And bluer, then, the blue sky rung

Because the beds of gold had sprung.

And the vast mountains sang for glee

And the strong winds all stopped to see.

The Teller Road in its glory.

The Faerie King has sown his gold

The result of that’s the Teller Road.

Image at top: One glorious bit of the glorious Teller Road. Photo by David Mendosa, courtesy of Fitness and Photography for Fun.