The students and faculty of Bemidji State University publish four literary publications annually.
“Dust & Fire” features the poetry, prose and art of Minnesota women and is the product of BSU’s Women’s Studies.
The preface of the 2008 “Dust & Fire” reads in part:
“Within this anthology, female poets bring their writings forward, exposing emotional depths. The poetry contained here is ripe with beauty and truth. Telling their tales, these poems speak of the trials and joys of womanhood, and illustrate the intelligence and artistry with which these women write.”
The work speaks for itself.
Falls resident Kate Lidfors Miller’s poem “After Sauna” was chosen for the 2008 edition.
In addition to the women’s anthologies, BSU also publishes anthologies of the works of men, high-school writers and BSU students.
Space constraints prevent a sampling of the anthology’s prose, but Miller’s poem and other moving pieces, are presented here.

WE TOLD EACH OTHER WHAT WE ALREADY KNEW
By Bonnie Beatson Palmquist

having had this discussion many times
as the evening shut the night out and the soft light
you wanted hid the lines that illness etched
across your face. We spoke quietly of friendship,
of family, of the death you were facing with dignity.
A gentle acknowledgement each visit shortened our time together.
This is not what I wanted, to be a witness to your struggle,
to offer small moments of comfort. I wanted you as you were,
before we entered into a slow realization that all
we can control is love for each other. The way love is
not terminal.

AFTER SAUNA
By Kate Lidfors Miller

If your bare feet have never pressed the snow
as naturally as moccasins on forest floor,
your skin wide open to the sky,
naked to the stars,
no different than the first time
you undressed before your lover
except the air is colder,
but you don’t think about it,
you just soak in the darkness of boreal spruce,
roots sunk deep in geologic time,
branches piercing the cloud scrim
backlit by the moon, and you are not cold,
but stilled, radiant—
then you have not yet pierced the latitudes of being,
your own light answering the darkness,
your own heat signaling the spheres.

EMPTINESS
By Marion C. Holtey
When summer winds
carry the fragrance
of freshly mown grass
I feel the spirit of songbirds
greeting the day
crazy with delight.

This is when childhood pokes
its nosy head into my busy life
reminding me of the freedom
that nothingness promised
and gave to me. An emptiness
not aching to be filled,
an emptiness satisfied with itself.

ENDING
By Susan Niemela Vollmer

The police are searching for another old woman
who drove away in her car
and disappeared
The search is serious but not as urgent
as the search for a lost child
dementia is mentioned
I know where I would go
if my body was failing
and I feared my mind was following.
I’d find some faint road
into the wilderness and abandon the car
on the narrow trace
I’d follow the faint tracks of deer
stride firmly onto basalt and gneiss
set the leaves of poplars moving with my passage
Walk until I was too tired to take another step
stop to drink in the vista of forest and lake
caress the lichens beneath my hand
Lay back to watch the clouds
as they form and re-form overhead
wait for the encroaching darkness to claim spruce and sky

AFTERNOON DREAMS
By Sharron Mankus

A sunny summer afternoon
The house is refreshingly cool
It seems the world is napping
The cat is curled up in a patch of sunshine
The dog is chasing chipmunks in his sleep
I have finished my work
Now is my chance to curl up on the couch
With a cup of tea and that book that has been calling me
But my heart pulls me upstairs
My beautiful baby girl is asleep
The sunlight plays upon her curls
And the light breeze coming in through the window
Makes them dance, just a little
Her cheeks are rosy and smile plays about her lips
Usually so busy and bustling
It is unusual to see her so still, and I take the time
To memorize the soft curve of her cheek
And the way her damp curls frame her face
She will not be long asleep, I know
It is rare to have some quiet time
To spend as I please, and not as I must
And though I often long for this kind of time
I stand a bit longer in the doorway
Content to watch her dream her dreams
While I am dreaming mine

THE CHIPMUNK
By Joan Wiesner

In that state of idle curiosity
one spends in retirement
I sit on the back steps
and observe things.

An airplane, silver and distant,
slowly flickers through the branches
of an oak tree. Around me, acorns thump
and roll like caramel-colored jawbreakers.

Blended among the falling leaves,
a chipmunk watches me.
He does not need my Social Security.
For him there is no other way
but living at risk. Cats, dogs,
my neighbors are always after him.

Still, he plunges ahead with
the daring and dash of an optimist.
I see this tiny creature
stuff his cheeks with acorns,
run a zigzag path from nest to old age
and disappear into earth’s darkness.

He lives, mates, and dies.
No birth certificate. No obituary.
He will never learn a trade,
never find a good job.
And never, never retire.

THE NIGHT BEFORE
By Marianne McNamara

She slips upstairs to Tommy’s room,
sinks into the old maple rocker where she nursed her babies
to deeply satiated newborn slumber and milky-nippled dreams.
Pays tribute to the hours spent here, feels the old tenderness.
Soothing seesaw motion, sweet crooning,
Mockingbird and Turah Lurah for her wee Irish babes.
Recognizes the familiar comforting glow from the night-light,
remembers Goodnight Moon and The Runaway Bunny.
She folds empty arms, spreads protecting fingers
across her belly, her womb a safe sanctuary.
Recalls the moment when she first felt life,
unborn Kate, tiny fluttering bird beating gossamer wings.
Considers motherhood, elite club of women,
where wanting to join doesn’t guarantee membership.
Thinks of friends who never became mothers,
knows that after tomorrow she will no longer be able to grow a baby,
never again sustain life within herself.
She rocks haltingly, hurting tears come and her private mourning begins.

THE WAILING WALL
By Mary Junge

Who hasn’t wanted to visit the Wall of Prayer?
Honest tears, girls singing, keening,
Somewhere a donkey braying.
The sounds of grief feeding
grief feeding grief.

Once my mother
threw out a new silver anchor
Without first tying it to our fishing boat.

Once I met a woman who’d wronged me
So many years before. She reached her arms out for a hug,
And for forgiveness, perhaps.
My right hand instead offered all it knew — a handshake —
Forgiveness suddenly a small, receding star.
She withered then, too, a delicate flower gone dry.
I was still the girl from a poor family, and
She was still the rich girl, only now apparently with a conscience,
And grief all her own. Finally I had learned to defend myself,
Only I’d forgotten to tie on the anchor.
How quickly it shimmied down in those dark, muddy waters.