… and I departed the tent when it was -59F to replenish the Yukon stove’s fuel, and looking up, I saw it, the ten thousand (i.e., limitless) spears piercing from sky to sea, from sky to snow. I set down the empty mogas container, and walked through waist high snow far away from the tent and beyond the sound of the generators, five-ton trucks, and sounds of the base support area. And there, on the opposite side of a berm, I had covered the body with snow, scooping it with the arctic mittens, up to the shoulders to rest, breathe, look up and study the movements of the aurora on one of the most significant displays the base had ever seen.
[Redacted]
And I pushed off the branch that had been below the Micky Mouse boots, and then traveled back to the tent, to dust the powdery snow off, to the sweet smell of the Yukon Stove and other chemicals. I opened the tent and a sergeant had asked, with fellow soldiers, “where were you?!?! We thought you died!” I walked over to the sleeping bag, sat down upon it, and took off the Micky Mouse boots. “The aurora, it’s brilliant! If you want to see it, you can go out now. It raced off, and will come back.” The response, “it’s sixty below! We’re not going outside.”
[Redacted]
And tonight, this evening, upon reflecting, another pun somehow intended, I had realized that the ten thousand (i.e., limitless) spears had become internalized. I move now like the aurora, and what is so brilliant, is that “aurora” is a phenomena—it is styleless in motion, yet styled in medium, connecting heaven, and earth.
Each and every day, minute, second, breath,
as the end of one’s [1’s] life.
And what is one [1]?
But none [in the same].
I sing to the upon high, for the end is nigh.
I wish, for the benefit of limitless beings.