Night Shining by Katherine Wallin


Welcome to Sunday Morning Lyricality, featuring a weekly song or poem by a Minnesota writer.

Where do poems come from? Katherine Wallin (pronounced wall-EEN) suggests that poets often begin with paradox, confusion, or questions. While poems don’t provide answers–they are not little how-to manuals for living–we might turn to poetry to catch an insight, which may feel like getting a glimpse of the moon on a mostly cloudy night.

–Tracy Rittmueller

Night Shining
Katherine Wallin

At times
the sun
well over the horizon
illuminates
noctilucent clouds
to make mesospheric art
by the light
they are given

We make 
our poems
by the light
we are given
with limited language
insufficient
for the unresolvable
the paradoxical
for our anguish
or our praise

Yet soon
almost always
witness from the page
a glimpse
of the moon

Katherine Wallin was born on the tall grass prairie in North Dakota. She has resided for most of her life in Minnesota and now lives in Saint Cloud. She received a BS and an MA along the way, studying education and literacy. She made her living in the world by teaching in the public schools, work in corporate communications and training and small business management. The habit of daily journaling, a love of poetry and literature, and something like a calling led to writing poetry. She began studying craft independently, learning from great poems and poets, local and online classes, and creative writing workshops. For her, writing poetry supports the creation of a mindful, contemplative life.

"Night Shining" is one of three poems, which served as the script for Lyricality's Pop-Up Spoken Word performance at Books Revisited in downtown St. Cloud, MN on December 28, 2019. "Night Shining" appears here with the permission of the author.
Listen for Katherine Wallin’s “Night Shining” in the middle of this spoken word performance. Bill Meissner and Mary Willette Hughes also contributed poems for the script.
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