Barb Germiat
CONTACT:
Barbara Germiat
1642 W. Homestead Drive
Appleton, WI 54914
Email: barb@germiat.net
BIO:
Barb is a Fox Valley poet. Her poetry has been published in WFOP Calendar, Fox Cry Literary Review, Portage (online), Creative Wisconsin Literary Journal, Appleton Post-Crescent, Sisters Today, St. Anthony Messenger, and elsewhere. She published a chapbook in 2017 Look, the Silence.
Poetry
Snowstruck
I could comb Roget’s Thesaurus,
search the edges of my memory,
hunt for words to tell you how this snowfall
honeycombs the dome in which we breathe,
saturates the air with quiet crystals,
muffles customary noises.
Or I could whisper
Look,
the silence.
A Trip Back Home
A ghost scent of felled pine trees lingered when
he visited the town where he’d grown up,
Lumberton, so named for its industry.
He told the desk clerk at the Comfort Inn
he’d come back to visit his grandma’s house,
to see the cemetery where she rests.
He took pictures of his ancestors’ graves,
walked past playgrounds, felt long-ago laughter.
Returning to his room, he heard the phone.
“Hello?” A young man’s voice said, “Mr. Brown?
When did you live here, and where did you work?”
“In the seventies. At the lumberyard.”
“What kind of car did you drive?” “A pickup,
worn out old Chevy.” The fellow paused, said,
“Well, thank you sir. You’re not my father then."