Poetry by Danita Dodson
She cleaves the quivering air,
her wings spun from prismed light,
feathered at the meadow’s hem.
We script her joy as weightless,
crown her myth against the dark,
watch her wake the sleeping sky.
What we forget in our dreaming—
her days are edged with struggle,
with hunger, with starlings’ theft.
A mother seeking a hallow home,
she nestles where rot gives room,
cradling life in shifting shadows.
Still she returns, undiminished—
fledgling-feeder, hope-bringer,
tracing rites on warming winds.
She finds her way home at dusk,
tastes the thaw on the earth’s breath,
sounding the spring’s first song.
Danita Dodson is the author of three poetry collections: Trailing the Azimuth, The Medicine Woods, and Between Gone and Everlasting. Her poems appear in Salvation South and elsewhere. She is the 2024 winner of the Poetry Society of Tennessee’s Best of Fest. She lives in Sneedville, Tennessee. More at danitadodson.com.
