Anonymous. Inuit. Translated by Knud Rasmussen

The great sea
Has sent me adrift,

It moves me as a weed in a great river,

Earth and the great weather move me,

Have carried me away,

And move my inward parts with joy.

I first came upon this poem back in a class I took on the Inuit in college. The version I had back then was part of a longer poem collected by anthropologist Knud Rasmussen, who did more to explain Inuit culture than anyone. I always imagine a lone rider in a kayak when I think of this poem. It's a crisp morning and she is having a moment outside of her labors to see exactly where and what she is. Somehow she makes insignificance feel comfortable and resignation becomes an almost divine act of will. The way the poet shifts landscape from being a weed in a great river to a being subject to the movements of the great weather and than moving the landscape to her inner world now awash in joy. It's an unusual use of shape shifting, as the poet having dissolved into her landscape now changes as it changes because she's inside of it and then in the last line it's inside of her and we're back to where the poem's perspective began.