Janice Northerns

Autumn in Kansas

was the first thing I loved about the state
after months of mixed reviews. The new house
was right: space for a moody teen, rustic
rock hearth, kitchen’s red countertops. But this
was southwest Kansas, ugly stepsister

to the greener east, the wind fierce here
and carrying a whiff of blood and bone
from the packing plant. And that wide horizon
locals counted a selling point? Our boy
grumbled: we’ve moved to the edge of the world. 

That first September, trees in town, non-native,
but trees all the same, surprised me with their
garnet and gold show, and a slow swoon began,
making me forget for a moment the place
we’d come from, just six hours south, where leaves 

snapped from green to dead at first freeze. When
the rains came, I baked cookies in the afternoons,
oatmeal and peanut butter, and we mastered
the quirks of the big stone fireplace, shoving
logs to the back to forestall smoky rooms. 

Rain caught the monarchs mid-trip to Mexico
one evening in our backyard, where they sheltered
overnight. We woke to find hundreds festooning
the magnolia tree, each a folded secret. 

As the sun dried damp wings, they opened
into a Calder mobile of black and bronze
ornaments floating upward, singly at first,
then by the dozens, each one tracing
a lifeline across the palm of an open sky.

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Janice Northerns is the author of a new poetry chapbook, Men & Angels, and a full-length collection, Some Electric Hum, winner of the Byron Caldwell Smith Book Award from the University of Kansas, the Kansas Authors Club Nelson Poetry Book Award, and a WILLA Literary Award Finalist in Poetry. The author grew up on a farm in Texas and holds degrees from Texas Tech University, where she received the Robert S. Newton Creative Writing Award. Her poetry has been nominated for Pushcart and Best of the Net prizes. She lives in Kansas and currently hosts the Kansas segment of Poets on the Plains, a weekly program on High Plains Public Radio. Find more information on her website: www.janicenortherns.com.