**Two poems, unrelated except for they both have something to do with North, and both were written while I listened to a song called North. 1 is inspired by a character from a novel I'm working on, and 2 is just part of an idea that may one day become a novel, who knows.**

1. Bears

Beneath the blanket thick and fogged
you slept as the train pulled on and on,
headlong down irreversible course--
we were going to the city north.

Little sister, back then your dreams
were nothing more than what they seemed
and undisturbed you slumbered there--
the last sunstreaks dying in your hair.

Through the window I gazed undisturbed
but the heavy fog the trees obscured
which obscured in turn the monsters' shapes--
if only I had known our fate. 

The station, safe at last, we reached
and I gently shook you from your sleep
How I wish I would have foreseen--
I would have left you within that peaceful dream.

Bears, in every shadow they watch us pass
they lurk and wait for their perfect chance
to break through with chaos, destroy, divide--
it is the same they've done to you inside.

2. No Such Thing as North

She says, There is no such thing as North. 
It is a legend, they say, and so rightly. 
North is a waver, a dream, something only
revolutionaries or poets can believe in.
The moauntains are real enough; feel them
if you so desire cold stones. 
But there is no pass going between them,
and nothing beyond.
My friend, to go North
is to die.

I disagree, he says, and holds out his hand.
she opens it to see what he holds:
something glass and round, with a needle and lines.
A compass, it was called long ago. Take it.
Hold it, look, he says, and he whispers,
It points North.
My friend, to go North
is to live.

She will not go. She fears not death,
but emptiness.
There is someone there, he pleads, who will help us. 
Please. Come with me.
But she refuses him still. He leaves, alone.

She will go. She fears not death, 
but emptiness. 
Her soul is empty, and it urges her on.
She has no compass.
But she perseveres still. She leaves, alone.

...
From out of the mountains she passes, and there
stretching before her: her fears are all true. 
The North is nothing. It is cold, and white, and blank. She weeps. 
There is no such thing as North.