The stories behind Alaska - Northern Lights

• Northern Lights and the Medevac That Can’t Land — “Northern Lights” imagines an Alaska clinic technician keeping equipment running alone through a storm, when the helicopter simply cannot get there.

Lyrics

Alaska writes its weather on the window

White miles folding past the clinic door

The radio coughs a name from somewhere northward

And the snow begins to climb the floor

Mirror checks the monitor by lamplight.

Cleans the dust from every borrowed lead.

She tests the pumps and labels every battery,

keeps a careful count of what they need.

Under northern lights, green rivers turn above us,

blue fire moving over spruce and stone.

Through the frozen distance, mirror keeps the room

alive

Making sure no patient waits alone

Medevac is delayed beyond the ridgeline

Isis sealed the narrow landing strip

She warms a censer underneath her parka

Coaxes one more reading from the kit

The generator stutters, she is listening

For the small red blink that says it's true

wire and valve becomes a promise every working

screen away through

under northern lights green rivers turn blue

fire moving over spruce and stone

through the frozen distance never keeps the room

alive Making sure no patient waits

alone

Morning finds the mountains hard and silver

the aurora thinning in today

mara locks the cabinet checks the

charging

And walks the quiet equipment bay