The Northern Lights Pulled Down

The birds back home thought it was the northern lights pulled down
the grass dressed up as fire, the flight undressed in song.
They go home and tell their families how graceful the descent was
and that only birds and children can see
men and women made of stars lose themselves to the day.


I have never seen a sky wider than me.
I am rich and round like the sea.
Born in a river-O Mother,
you made me feel like a star when I felt crazy.
You gave me a whole chocolate cake
for the thieves and sinner children in my head.


When the birds sang together, the morning
song of region and rejoice, they shook the wicked
out of the trees and looked
over the storehouses of suffering and filtered
through the smoking leaves
tiny fists of flight that fell in love with shadow
and I could not help but sing.

Laura Minor currently runs a three-ring circus of poetry, music, and academia. She received her MFA from Sarah Lawrence College and is currently working on her first collection of poems. She has published numerous poems in journals and small print mags, but chooses to spend the bulk of her time writing 3-chord country songs. A musician as well as an academic minion at the University of Florida, she is currently working in feminist musicology positioning Gertrude Stein, Yoko Ono, and Björk in a reception study with hysterical woman as the central metaphor. She released a record entitled, .Salesman.s Girl. in 2002 for Hightone Records and her solo debut is forthcoming in the Spring of 2005.