Diane Melby
Salon for Creative Expression
Midwinter Malaise
A lone robin huddles
in the old dogwood tree,
shivering (as only birds can shiver)
realizing (as only birds can realize)
a serious miscalculation has been made.
It’s hard for the robin to know
whether to stay or whether to go.
A woman sits alone
with her coffee growing old,
realizing (as others have realized)
pondering (as others have pondered)
what recalibration can be made.
It’s hard for her to know
if it’s too late to stay
or too late to go.
The robin and the woman
cling to their perches,
he to his branch,
she to her chair.
All they know,
as far as they can know,
it’s too hard to stay
in a world gone cold.
Diane Melby
Originally published in the Anthology of Appalachian Writers, v. XVII, 2025.
I understand identity to be fluid and contextual. Depending on who is asking and why, I might say I am a Chicano artist, a Latinx artist, a Mexican-American artist, a Mexican artist, a Texas artist, or an American artist. All of these are true within certain social and cultural frames.
What remains constant is the person I am beneath those labels—the inner self that answers only to justice, poetry, and love. That self resists naming. The labels are for the world; in solitude, my identity has no name.
I am an observant person, especially of patterns, motifs, repetition; such as those that may be found in studying nature, for example. These structures invite imagination and guide my creative process.
I am equally inspired by lived experience: personal history, daily encounters, conversations with others, and moments of solitude. The people I surround myself with—artists, poets, thinkers—also shape my work. Community and dialogue matter, just as much as isolation and inward listening.
Even the fact of my death is inspirational. Mortality pushes me to make meaning, to create a tangible legacy of my best self. Creation is in fact, an act of attention and care in the face of impermanence.
Adapted from an interview published by Centro Cultural Aztlan, September 13, 2024.