2021 Poetry Runner-up: "Snow Sunsets" by Aubrey Painter

Thumbnail photo credit: Michael Niessl (@antipodos), obtained and licensed through Unsplash

Snow Sunsets

The day you died, snow fell
as if the sky were apologizing
for the hardness of the Earth and darkness of night,

 too late.
The ground is soft and bright,
not as painful to fall in: 

you needed a safer place to land, 
so the Sun called to you rather than the Void.
You joined the Sun in its final set,

and too late,
snow fell for you.

---

Touchstone Undergraduate Creative Writing Awards are an annual award series open to current undergraduate students at Kansas State University. In each of the following genres: poetry, creative nonfiction, and fiction, two submissions are chosen by the editors at Touchstone. Winner in every genre receives a cash prize of $75, and the runner up receives $50.

---

Aubrey Painter is native to Wichita, Kansas and is currently a third year undergraduate student at Kansas State University. They are majoring in secondary education with a focus in English. They write about their experiences and they hope to continue to develop their writing skills as they continue with their degree.