"Via Rail and Via Memory" - Margaret Laurence

[inkdot.livejournal.com]

Via Rail and Via Memory -- Margaret Laurence

---

the train is always moving
west

for us always west
for my people west
is the direction
our lives take
west is here in us

I hadn't seen my heartland
for years and years
at this time
the fields of fall greengold
nearly ready for harvest
and wind-fingers ruffling
wheat oats barley
as though the fields
were the goddess's hair

sounds swell eh?
I wasn't fooled
even from the safety of a train
because a train
of consequences binds me
like long-ago binder twine
twining lives and land together
Relief's other meaning
their parents knew
the thirties years
when proud people had to take
shame for the paltry dollars
the government dole doled out
the guilt they felt the ruined lands
when the rain did not come and the banks
foreclosed

I know this all
I grew up with it
it is in my blood
the Depression
and how many themselves
in their own depression?

I know and remember
though I was a child then
I recall and yet I sing
this land mine
I cry for that past
and yet love
this openness of sky
these waiting fields
these bluffs scrub-oak poplar maple
these damn tough trees like farmers
like women men
survivors
against all odds

the train moves west
the American lady says
"are you native-born Canadian?"
Yes, I say, I'm surely that.
Well, she says, can I tell her
and her friend, Vancouver-bound,
when we'll reach
the more interesting country?

I smile gently I hope
because she couldn't have known
and say
"I was born and grew up
hereabouts
and for me this is
the more interesting country."

Comments

[sunflower-pixie.livejournal.com]

*peeks out*

i went to tag this entry and saw it was you :) hooray! and hi!

(and nice poem!)

[inkdot.livejournal.com]

Hooray is right! *hug*

Margaret Laurence is extremely near and dear to my heart.