Refugees of Reason

Up on Sikman Hill

Picking berries up on Sikman Hill,
"The highest point," they say
"between Edmonton and Winnipeg."
It's quiet here, just the muffled
distant sounds of a diesel tractor
a mile away, and the gurgling drone
of vehicles flowing along the highway
at the height of the tourist runoff.

From horizon to horizon to horizon
a panoramic patchwork of rural industry:
yellowing fields of canola
framed by range roads and townships
and criss-crossed by fence lines;
like brushstrokes on a water colour canvas,
dark smudges of pasture where
cattle graze, chew, and poop
on their rolling, rocky outdoor carpet.

I can see Lavoy just over there,
nestled along the Yellowhead;
the prairie expanding away in every direction,
the landscape dotted with homesteads;
homes and barns, quonsets and granaries,
some constructed in recent years,
some a hundred years old, and
some of those deserted and weary,
greyed by a century of sun,
many with mean leans,
battling to remain upright against forces unseen;
neglect leads but to decline and an early demise.

To the west the AGT towers rise above Vegreville,
stretching towards the heavens
like two out-stretched arms
among a congregation of dwellings
with rooflines resembling the backs
of a thousand kneeling and prostrate sinners
worshiping at a travelling evangelical's feet.
And wasn't that a common occurrence
in these parts seventy years ago.
Okay, okay, I would need binoculars
to see those rooflines, but I know
they are there. Perhaps I have faith too!

Standing here in cogitation, my berry pale
strapped to my belt and nearly full,
a temporary trug to be emptied into
the van parked along the road that
rises up and then descends
down Sikman Hill. Like a bell curve
measuring the value of my pursuit,
I can look back along the road from
hence I arrived at this spot, oft travelled,
familiar, like a favoured poem
in a favourite book, easy to return to
when I need sustenance or rescue.

Looking west is like looking ahead,
I know where I will be tonight.
The sun will lead me towards my home
now in the suburbs not so far from here;
but, still, a very long, long ways
from the quiet of this tilted pasture
and this tranquil stand of berry bushes.
Tonight the sweetness of the fruit I carry
will rouse the memories of the day,
when solitude was my friend, and
my thoughts were thoughts of the restoring kind.

~ gtk