Skywriting

Photo courtesy of Nita K. Ritzke.

By Stephanie Blumhagen

Grey dusk, November sky, skeleton grasses

flattened tangles, brittle and bent beneath my boots.

Over the pink-laced horizon hangs

under-ripe, a ghost moon, cloud-hidden in purple-tinged sky.

Endless flocks of zigzag geese make arrow-headed silhouettes,

south pointed, inverted, aerial compasses

synchronous wings and whispering drum beats

cryptic rhythm, a secret song.

A graceful love letter in the sky,

written with

V’s

Y‘s

W’s

I am the solitary recipient of a message I cannot understand.

Thousands of mournful geese cry out

“journey”

“longing”

“cold.”

My heart answers

“staying”

“lonely”

"home."

-

Miles north, a train rolls on, rhythmic, insistent,

destined east or west, bound to its track.

In my mind’s eye, the cars roll past strung together

letters, words, sentences, phrases, stories

passing on, one by one, into Elsewhere

and I stand here

on the crumpled faded grasses, craning my face to see the geese

intersecting the train’s westward journey with their southward flight.

The whistle blows, two short

Morse code blasts and the singing geese

sketch indecipherable sonnets on the sky—the train chugs by.

The geese cry,

“winter”

“family”

“homecoming..

love...

loss...

…distance.”

STEPHANIE BLUMHAGEN is from Drake, North Dakota, where her family has farmed for four generations. She currently resides in Bottineau where she is a grant writer at Dakota College at Bottineau and runs a small home bakery called Meadowlark Granary. She is passionate about writing, the outdoors, and local food.