Winter for a Moment Takes the Mind
{An Umbrella Special Feature}


Ross Plovnick,

a member of the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis, has lived and worked in the Twin Cities for 35 years.

Recent publication credits include Modern Haiku, Pegasus, Poetalk, Amaze, and Wild Goose Poetry Review.

 




—Back to “Extra” Contents—

Vision

Sightseeing in Helsinki, daughter
of the brackish Baltic, you’re sure to come across
a windswept park of pine and birch
that boasts a welded pipe-gang monument
to the Finnish composer
Jean Sibelius.

527 stainless-steel cylinders,
hollow, no two sized and shaped alike, crowd
together on a massive rock to forge
the image of an outdoor organ
even though, your tour-guide fills you in,
Sibelius didn't like or write for organ.

When you wonder if what you see
are just pricey pipes for wind-driven sleet
to hammer icy praises to Sibelius on
or if there’s artifice within this art,
the guide is quick to grin
and let you know that if you ask

the artist who conceived
and birthed the monument in 1967,
she says look past organ pipes,
see sturdy trunks of Finland’s soaring forests.
See icicles of Finland’s killing winters.
She says see.
 
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