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