This interview originally aired on "In the Moment" on SDPB Radio.
Our month-long ode to verse is coming to a poetic close. We're rounding out poetry month with the South Dakota State Poetry Society.
SDSPS president Marcella Remund shared how poetry helps connect the community. She also read us one of her poems.
VESPERS
The sun, luminous host of burnt orange,
golden rose, falls early into the open
mouth of the Black Hills. In shadow,
elk drink from a limestone sinkhole,
verdigris cup still running over
with Tuesday’s sudden rain.
Bats wake, slip from pines still standing
or planed into cabin eaves, wings flutter
like paper fans in summer church.
Dakota skippers take one last blessing
from harebell or mariposa lily.
Whitetail does coax fawns up an aisle
of timothy grass to the sanctuary
of ponderosa pine, quaking aspen.
Dark settles in, stars blink on in the black
July sky, and then the singing,
invisible coyote choir at the treeline,
tremulous songs of love, fear, want.
Oh, the candles are lit, hymns echo
in thin, cool air, the priest is everywhere.
My heart aches with gratitude,
each caught breath my offering
on this plate of limestone,
and I am on my knees.
(Amen.)
