The day I soared the sky cloud-frowned unfallen snow and what was there? Wings aloft an air-born stream a blossoming dress rehearsal a choir of windblown angels. I lifted my eyes to see
the lean heron fold and unfold its everlasting arms slate without weight pterodactyl complement to firmament. Or now, see? Dozens and dozens of chickadee sprites a flock dressed in cubist-conformity bursting from treetops zip! zip! O, do you hear? the Celtic faerie’s dee-dee-dee.
Listen, please as I recall the first freeze, the frost. Our little dogwood tipped with bouncy, bitter berries until the nip of it red rounds sun-warmed suddenly succulent. Flickers cling from branch to twig their black bibs first in line beaks primed peck, peck. Then the squirrels.
On into December’s darkest clime how birds survive messengers of light defying wind gusts blow after blow icy finger-spikes to feathered foreheads and still solstice flies by night lightens the earth while I come to you moment by moment arms lifted days lengthening
and I believe so
for I have flown in splendor
one day and the next.
is a Lascaux Poetry Prize finalist living near the Boise River. After attending Boise State University, she taught English and served briefly as a Poet in the Schools. Thanks to a grant from the National Endowment, she was able to study the interplay of nature and the economy during the settlement of the American West, an experience that continues to inform her writing. She is the author of What These Hands Remember (Kelsay Books, 2022), and her poems have appeared in numerous print and online journals. If Seasons Were Kingdoms is forthcoming in 2024 from Fernwood Press.
