Posts Tagged ‘prairie’
horizons
Landscape is a fundamental driver in our lives. The spaces around us shape our experiences, our thoughts and our perspectives.
I was born and raised on the Alberta prairie. Although I love the woods and hills where I now live, I think my eyes are never satisfied when they seek the horizon.
When we drove across Canada in 2002, my husband, who was born in New Brunswick, was appreciative of the prairie landscape, but when we finally turned toward home, he was glad, so glad, to see the trees.
In southern Alberta, on the Trans-Canada Highway, we tried to measure the distance to the horizon. We took note of the oncoming lights and timed how long it took them to reach us on the road. One car, we estimated, was 17 kilometers away when we first saw it on the prairie horizon! On the Trans-Canada in New Brunswick, we rarely see cars more than 2 or 3 kilometers distant.
the prairie horizon of southern Alberta (2002)
What was the landscape of your childhood? Do you live in a different landscape now? How are these landscapes different and how are you different in each?
a longing for prairie
~
1.
what subtle psychoses
plague women
who grow on the prairie
and leave
to die in the forest
2.
memories a few words long
the chinook coulees at sunset the odd red of prairie mallow grasshoppers without aim
spears of foxgrass gophers beside their burrows willows by the slough
the rattle of the Texan Gate the tarnished dry of August
I want to run on the prairie
3.
I narrow my eyes at the ditches
imagine the weeds tumbling
to cover the forest with shortgrass
and sedges
the clearcut
and the barrens of blueberry
have the lie
but not the essence of prairie
4.
piled by the roadside
nine bales of hay
burst from the baler twine
left to the rain
piled three high into landscape
mountains, foothills, flatland
this last has sprouted me prairie
5.
trees form a tunnel
shut out the spaces around me
some days I can’t summon the words
the hay and the corn fields are all I have
and the hayfield shows the tines of the tiller
deep into summer
~
Published as: ‘a longing for prairie’, Whetstone Spring 1997
(revised)
© Jane Tims
a glimpse of prairie landscape in New Brunswick ... just a glimpse
nichepoetryandprose 