Know Rhyme and Reason Contest Winner:
Debra Daniel
Honorable Mentions:
Lawrence Rhu, Letha French
The Gravity of a Colder Force
5,000 birds fell from the sky just before midnight New Year's Eve.
Wind shear, black ice, thunder-snow,
Rain quick-frozen in air too cold.
Their wingspans rimed slick, those Canada geese
cracked through the glaze. Flocks fell like sleet.
Their long-necked bodies, ragged and pricked,
lie fractured in the splintered thicket.
Sharpened pain hovers in broken pines,
where they fell, where they died.
A feathered mourning came with dawn.
We sing of old acquaintance gone.
Judge’s Comment:
I greatly admired the economy of this poem, how it used so little to convey so much. I loved the precise, sharp, and unforgiving imagery of the geese and the cold, and how moving the overall effect was.