Hans Island, 80°N 66°W
There’s a small island in the north that bears your name—
not named after you
but after someone with the same name as you,
and not even their real name
just the forename explorers gave their guide and interpreter,
Suersaq, their interpreter and guide—
in a moment of good humour perhaps
or even with a vague sense that some gratitude was required
since several times over he had saved their lives.
They could not pronounce his real name
and he did not tell them that the island already had one.
A low and isolated rock-ledge, wrote Elisha Kent Kane
which glaucous gulls have made their own peculiar homestead.
Suersaq saw naajarujussuat
the last birds to persist so far north, well into winter—
knew how to catch them with baited lines on the shore
where cliffs rose from black limestone, many fathoms below,
and pack ice drifted in from the pole.
Today the waters are charted and almost ice-free.
The island has caused a territorial war between two powers
who claim it lies midway between their borders.
Governments name it in three official languages.
They send their military with bottles of spirits and national flags
and contest it in distant courts.
Be content never to go.
Explorers hope to leave a name behind
but they only mark their maps, then bring the maps back home—
where maps aren’t needed, and their names are known.
