POETS’ CORNER: WHITEOUT FOR NEWTOWN, CONN.

21 Dec POETS’ CORNER: WHITEOUT FOR NEWTOWN, CONN.

Editor’s Note: Kierstin Bridger is the 2011 winner of Telluride Arts’ Mark Fischer Poetry Prize and a regular contributor to Telluride Inside… and Out. Usually the edgiest, often the darkest member of our family of fabulous writers/poets, including Word Woman Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer and “Feelasophy” major David Feela, Kierstin surprises us with this sensitive, elegaic tribute to a town in mourning.

Whiteout for Newtown

The white storm too dense,
a shroud we couldn’t see our way through

so we drove home unable to witness
the dogwood reach from under snow,
hear the new choir singing Noel.

We missed the cardamom cakes
behind gingerbread doors.
Listened instead to news tangle and loop

until we were wound tight, steering in disbelief.
Beyond the tumult, and our hood ornament
beyond the limit of our visibility

the last moments of light sunk into night,
without our awe;
holiday ribbons too garish to unravel just now.