Saskatchewan

In the spring

the snow crystallizes and glints

the sun now has some warmth

black patches appear in the fields

the creeks and rivers overflow their banks

people say hello again to their neighbours

everyone a little older

(everyone who lives here is a little older)

there are not so many children

In the summer

the air smells like wheat

the wind makes waves in the fields

the cicadas hum like electric wire

the gophers stand like sentinels

on the side of the roads

watching the farmers in their arachnid machinery

fighting against fate season after season

Everyone has left the little towns

each of them with their shops closed

1959 never ended here

the last good year just wore away

there is no butcher shop, no bakery, no dairy,

no movie theater

everyone watches DVDs but that is no Saturday matinee

for 35 cents with popcorn and a Vico

there is no more railway line

no lonesome whistle

the grain elevators vanished

with the spirit of the place

whose country is this, anyway, where such things could happen?

by whose will did this all disappear?

was no one watching?

the Chinese restaurant miraculously remains

the small cabin

that stood here

falls into disrepair

and settles groaning into the prairie dust

its contents vandalized

the cardboard insulation can now be seen

an entire family in three small rooms

a log cabin

a hundred years after the American frontier

were the people who lived here rich or poor?

what was the value of the kerosene lantern at night against the darkness

of the eternal sky?

What is better, now, than the fire in a cast-iron stove warming feet in socks frozen by the chill air and frigid ground?

there is no comfort in the absence of threat

but it was backbreaking labour

and sentimentality comes easy from a distance

the bright summer sun shines into the abandoned barn

through the suspended motes

dancing in the light

there are the smells of dust and horses and hay

a stadium for mice

the door has settled into the ground and can no longer be opened

you might squeeze through

and see the skeleton of a coyote lying in a corner of the stable

or maybe it was an old dog

that crawled in here to die

the iron tractor wheel that served to hold water from the pump in the yard

is rusted and overgrown by grass

the blacksmith shop

a little factory

can barely be distinguished from the ancient granaries

except by those who knew it

the caboose for winter schoolchildren has become grey with age

while the people who built these things to last

turn silver

they slow down

and then they disappear

one by one

along with this past

In the autumn

everyone prays

that it does not rain

that it will not hail

that it will not freeze

that it does not snow

four such miracles rarely occur together

In the winter

the snow blows snakelike like desert dust

over the highways

everyone wishes that what was built

would remain

just because something is good

does not mean it will last