The sound of snow
underfoot
the tall trees brushing wind,
bending
and the whistle like a song.
See the moose on the trail,
deep in white.
See the elk on the field,
watching.
I watch the horizon
for the color of sky all hazy sunset
painted with feather
and soon the mountain
like a cloud snow-piled
and unhemmed.
The sage grass,
the willows, the cottonwood
as if lit from within.
And here,
just below the skin,
something unstrings
and untethers.
—
As her grandmother once said, Callie Plaxco flew the coop when she left South Carolina to journey west to the University of Wyoming for her MFA in Creative Writing. Still in Wyoming, Callie lives with her husband, two small boys, and two big dogs. Her chapbook Dear Person is available at Dancing Girl Press and individual poems have appeared in Carve Magazine, Tinderbox, SWWIM and Sugar House Review. She is the 2024 recipient of the Wyoming Arts Council’s Neltje Blanchan Writing Award.
