There’s something about Bonnie Larson Staiger’s poem “Still” that reminds me of summer evenings where the heat of the day begins to break and the North Dakota wind (always more than a breeze) brings a bit of relief. 

With all the chaos in the world today, maybe “Still” will offer a moment of reflective calm even in the face of continuing gusts.

If you’d like to read the rest of this issue of North Dakota Quarterly, you can download it here for free. There’s no catch. You can also read more for this issue by clicking here.

We’re doing this in collaboration with our publishing partners at the University of Nebraska Press who have also offered a coupon code for a 10% discount on subscriptions to NDQ or $2 off any single issue. Use the code “9389VT” at check out. It’s good until June 30th. We’re hoping this encourages folks to subscribe to the Quarterly. If you can, go here to subscribe.

Still

            after Mike Arnautov’s “Meditation”

Just as your meditation brings fragments
to me—a someone on the other shore

same waning moon over my Missouri
River of rivers and wind dying down

from unquiet gusts on summer evenings.
A conflagration could bring us nearer

tame our impatient minds so we could teach
each other to listen to boundless peace

of words and greet a myriad of lights
just before the air awakens at dawn.

~

Bonnie Larson Staiger is a North Dakota Associate Poet Laureate, the recipient of the ‘Poetry of the Plains and Prairies Prize (NDSU Press, 2018) and the ‘Independent Press Award: Distinguished Favorite’ (2019) for her collection, Destiny Manifested. She often writes of the poignant subtleties of life on the high plains.

87.1/2