Fountain County, Indiana
December 14, 2021, 5:00 a.m.
Located on Myaamia land
Walking out into deep country dark, the sky,
black silk, the stars’ glittering dust strewn
amidst the leafless crowns of trees.
I’m hoping to see the Geminids, first time,
but my transplanted city girl’s fear
of unseen creatures
in the night woods, rises, unsteadies me
the way mole runs risen in the yard unsteady me.
Lord, help me only to be afraid if there’s reason to be,
a prayer so simple it’s a wonder
I hadn’t thought to speak it before.
At last night’s grade school music program,
six-year-old violinists stood onstage
on individual mats and repeated
Sway back and forth like a tree in the wind
to anchor their little bodies, distribute weight
to both feet planted firmly,
and keeping their knees unlocked, swayed
like the taper of trees,
before lifting their tiny violins.
In this early morning dark, bundled
like a child in coat and hat, I sway,
search the pre-dawn dark
for streaks of light….
There! And there!
It could be any century and I could be looking up
where another woman once stood outside
her home, hers, dome-shaped and made
of poles and bark. Sky as mystery, as history
inscribed in stardust streaking down
into the minds of trees.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 26, Issue 5.
Daye Phillippo taught English at Purdue University and her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Valparaiso Poetry Review, The Midwest Quarterly, Literary Mama, Shenandoah, Presence, Cider Press Review, Great Lakes Review, Natural Bridge, The Windhover, and others. She lives and writes in a creaky, old farmhouse on twenty rural acres in Indiana. Her poem “Missing Parts” was awarded second place in the New York Encounter Poetry Contest in 2021. Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and her debut full-length collection, Thunderhead, was published by Slant Books in 2020.
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