"I Was There As Rain"

I was there
as the rain
hesitated;

drizzle contemplated
itself.

I could feel
the world changing
its mind.

Until the drops
thickened into
glycerine.

Like I was there
at snow's invention.

The sound changes,
you know,
once the snowflakes
hit the ground
they decide
to rejoin

The day was wild with certainty.
For a small moment there,
I knew what matters.

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Sheryl Noethe
Credit Chad Harder

Born and raised in Minnesota, Sheryl Noethe attended a high-school alternative program, Urban Arts, which allowed her to learn to write poetry. After winning the The American Academy of Poets Award and a McKnight Fellowship, she published her first collection of poetry, The Descent of Heaven Over the Lake (New Rivers Press, 1984).

Now living at the foot of Mt. Jumbo in Missoula, Montana, Noethe is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, a Montana Arts Council Fellowship, the CutBank Hugo Prize in Poetry, and the Emerging Voices Award from New Rivers Press. She has also received an honorable mention for the Pushcart Prize. Her second poetry collection, The Ghost Openings (Grace Court Press, 2000), was awarded the Pacific Northwest Bookseller's Award and the William Stafford Poetry Prize. Her most recent collection, As Is, was published by Lost Horse Press in 2009.

Her work has been included in numerous anthologies, including Poems Across the Big Sky, Montana Women Writers: A Geography of the Heart, and I Go To the Ruined Place: Contemporary Poems in Defense of Global Human Rights.

From 2011-2013, Noethe served as Montana's Poet Laureate.

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Chérie Newman is a former arts and humanities producer and on-air host for Montana Public Radio, and a freelance writer. She founded and previously hosted a weekly literary program, The Write Question, which continues to air on several public radio stations; it is also available online at PRX.org and MTPR.org.