Art and shiny things…
You can vote now for the next Poet Laureate of the Upper Peninsula! Nominees were publicly chosen and are being publicly voted for on the Great Lakes of Commonwealth Letters website.
Nominees are (sample poems linked): Marty Achatz, Elinor Benedict, Eric Gadzinski, Kathleen Heideman, Jonathon Johnson, Beverly Matherne, Janeen Rastall, Ron Riekki, Jillena Rose, Andrea Scarpino, and my talented friend Saara Myrene Raapana.
You can vote for anyone, but for the record, you should vote for Saara.
This is how we herded by the waitress station,
waiting, as the town, turned down to one by snow,
settled like a gown that smothered all that ailed us.
.
How we first heard about the hostages
on Facebook, and then the town knelt down to zero,
still as snow once it resolves itself to ground.
.
How the sidewalk still needed seeding with rock salt.
How even when a person stands still, they can slip.
.
How we counted the seeds of our blessings.
How our blessings rebounded off the booths like buckshot.
.
How we each sometimes rebound into being
a country of one self.
How we other times are one self of a city.
.
How only below zero can we remember
September as that country where we save daylight
like fat over our muscles.
.
How a woman ran at the chained gym doors
to save her daughter.
How she dropped on the unseeded walk.
How we’ll remember her legs as
a fleet of hummingbirds skidding through snow.
.
How sometimes, to give something a shot means kill it.
How other times it means just close your eyes.
–Saara Myrene Raappana, via Augury Books
Coffee and Irony 