And we have a winner! Three actually: Andrea Pierceall, Betsy Sise, and Sarah Leidecker. Winter Read intern Cline Dolson, a junior at the Sage School, organized this contest for her internship project and each winner received a $50 gift card to the Gold Mine. Thank you to all who entered!
Drumroll please! The Winning Winter Read Poems:
From Sarah Leidecker
Crust-Cruising in a River of Sunshine
A river of sunshine drips from our sun, flows
down the galactic stream, runs
into the face of our earth, illuminating
here,
the world we know.
A river of sunshine drips into my world, bleeds
through my curtains, awakening
my internal rhythms—
Awake long before me but just now demanding my presence.
A river of sunshine drips into this complex earth,
and it bakes, hard; melts, softly
into the springtime snow, long frozen from the night’s turn.
I’m up now, ready to swim (or should I say ski) into that river of sunshine—
nature, described only by itself—
and I dress in layers of lycra, pulled over polyester; my clothes made of the earth I am in.
(For that matter—me, made of the earth I am in.)
I am fifteen now, and I feel no different. Time
moves linearly, consistently; humans
arbitrarily celebrating (and condemning) the passing of days.
But today feels timeless,
as I probe the sunbaked snow.
A perfect crust, a mantle on which to set my ski
In motion
Like the rest of this planet
In motion
Like my atoms on this perfect day.
Earth:
Commonly called complex
Incomputable
Too many synchronous cycles in several spatial scales.
Together, they create one glorious system.
Somehow, they fit.
Perhaps that is nature.
Certainly, it is the nature of things.
But it is not the nature of joy.
Joy is not complex. Joy is simple. Joy is a moment of sunshine,
pure and unadulterated.
Joy is this:
my ski through the soft snow: a crust-cruise, a pathway, an all-encompassing bridge
on which to explore.
Joy is my laugh, my whoop of pleasure as I let gravity pull me over the ridges.
Joy is this breath, inhaling this exhale of trees.
—ba-bum, ba-bum, ba-bum—
Joy is this heartbeat of the world
From Andrea Pierceall
For Anita
My dear friend
stops by to ask me
to take fly fishing lessons
and I say I will – both of us
knowing that we may never
really fish or it may be years
we don’t have before we
are good enough to brave
the river. But we make a plan
in honor of our friendship
and the warm evenings
of sunlight on green grass
and our mutual thoughts
of the water shining while our lines
make a perfect S in synchronicity.
From Betsy Sise
What the Fog Knows
Where the way ahead is foggy.
Where objects suddenly appear and disappear in the mist.
Where my steps are hesitant,
trying to find the edges-
the beginning and end of things.
Where the landscape is gentle,
not caring how it is seen.
Where my unsteady halting steps
are forgiven by the owls that call in the night.
Where my world is slowly shrinking
as I disappear into the arms of the fog.
Where I begin to see along that path
The Gate where the Great Leap is born.
Where the world races ahead as I pause
to feel the beauty of what is left behind.
Where I stop moving ever forward and wait
Where the hawks take me soaring
Where the eagles know my name
Where I finally discover
what the fog knows.
