Wintersong
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[Editor's Note]
[Masthead]
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How water moves its heavy molecules
when chilled,
each piece
posing for the other. Flakes
align themselves with birdsong
and return
while doves see the shape
of breath
telling the light
how to travel.
Rabbits trust their weight
on wind crust
near the solstice,
where early dusk retires
wood and water both.
So much
depends on motion, on the water
that moves.
We fall
asleep easily in winter.
A mittened hand
and softwoods
pad our dreams with pine,
hemlock, spruce.
___
"Wintersong" appeared in The Spoon River Poetry Review, Summer, 2001.
___
Paula Sergi's poetry explores the notion of place and the concept of home—what it can and cannot be. Her childhood in Wisconsin facilitated the exploration of rivers, prairie, snow hills and frozen ponds. After an exodus in the Pacific Northwest, she returned to her hometown, Fond du Lac, where the event of snowfall remains dramatic and satisfying. Images in her work include birds, feathers, codes, and trails—all used to pose the question of what accrues meaning, what can be tracked. Sergi received her BS degree in Nursing at the University of Wisconsin, and a MFA degree at Vermont College. She is co-editor of Boomer Girls: Poems by Women from the Baby Boom Generation, University of Iowa Press, 1999. The recipient of a 2001 Wisconsin Arts Board Fellowship Award, Sergi teaches in the English Department at the University of Wisconsin- Oshkosh. [email]