In Dilworth, Minnesota, another winter day is coming to an end. Off to the west on the dusty horizon, the sun makes its descent into the frozen ground. On the outskirts of town, Linda Winkler is leaving Wal-Mart after an afternoon of shopping. As she gazes up into the evening dusk, she notices the beautiful sunset in front of her. Her eyes take in the full beauty of a setting Midwest sun. She stops in amazement.
     Winkler, an astronomy professor at Minnesota State University Moorhead, has seen several sunsets. Yet on that February evening, the sunset she had viewed outside Wal-Mart was simply amazing.
     “It was the most incredible display of the night sky I’d ever seen,” Winkler said. “I turned around and pointed it out of other people who responded by saying, ‘Oh, wow!’ I wanted to run back inside and get one of those disposable cameras and take a picture, but I knew if I turned around it would be gone.”
     Like other American traditions and delights, watching the sun rise and fall from the blue sky, casting its array of colors across the horizon, adds to the definition of being an American. We as a society have been watching the sky through the years, gazing with half-craned necks to see such phenomenons as Northern Lights, full moons or shooting stars.
     Day and night, we watch and are inspired by the objects that move above our heads throughout the vast sky. Some people find it necessary to capture the images through photography. Others display the beauty of the sky through paintings or other artworks. Still, others believe in the power of words by conveying their thoughts and feelings through prose and poetry.
     Whichever the method of release, the spectacle that is the Fargo-Moorhead sky releases a beauty like no other throughout the world. The uncompromising flatness of the North Dakota prairie provides the perfect atmosphere for viewing the ascension and dissension of the sun and catching the oddities of the night sky.
     Former MSUM poet and professor Thomas McGrath is known to many as one of the finest poets in the history of Fargo-Moorhead. Like many other Fargo-Moorhead poets, McGrath took his feelings about something unusual in the area, something that cannot be found in other parts of the world, and wrote about it.
     “Poets write about something that is unusual,” said Mark Vinz, MSUM poet and professor. “For example, some have written about the Red River because it flows north.”
     In the poem “Dawn Song,” McGrath expresses the hopes, joys, comforts and struggles of a town. McGrath portrays the feelings seen in the dawn with lines like “Resounding gongs clang in the nineteen tongues of the town/And the burnished sounds of the hours of dawn downsail and sing/Into the shadowy streets…”
     Other poets combine feelings about people with the calm feelings after seeing the sun rise or set.
     William Snyder Jr. recalls one poem written while watching the sun set from his Fargo home. While relaxing in his den, Snyder gazed out into the Fargo sky and noticed the blue sky, streaked with red and orange. His thoughts drift to a woman by comparing the blueness of the sky to the blue veins of the woman.
     Snyder teaches poetry and literature at Concordia College in Moorhead, Minn. The poet and educator also organizes poetry readings and workshops on campus and in the Fargo-Moorhead area. By stressing expressionism and individualism through poetry, Snyder teaches area youth the fundamentals of poetry and writing.
     “Poetry is about show and tell.” Snyder said. “Instead of you telling me that I’m down, use imagery and abstraction to describe why I’m down. This poem uses the imagery I teach.”
     While sunsets provide inspiration for poetry, the night sky also holds several elements that assist in adding beauty and individuality.
     During the autumnal equinox, a full moon rises around sunset and casts moonlight for farmers to work longer days for harvesting crops. The moon is commonly referred to as the “harvest moon.” Farmers across the U.S. enjoy the harvest moon for the incredible scenery it provides.
     “When you put that huge yellow moon against the blue background, it’s incredible,” Winkler said. “It’s like when photographers take portraits. They place you in front of a blue backdrop because a black backdrop would be boring.”
     No matter where poets live, there are always the sun and moon affecting the community, the people, the words and the feelings that come from the people. Poetry is a way of expressing those aspects of life that exist and effect us. Like the sun and moon, poetry will always be around to convey thoughts from one person to another.
     “Just about every poet in this area has written about the night sky or sunsets,” said Vinz. “It’s part of what we see here in Fargo-Moorhead.”