Blog - Wednesday Poems

Above: Detail of reflected cattails and reeds taken in 2016 from the walkway in the Sackville Waterfowl Park, alongside the old railway bed that now forms part of the Trans Canada Trail.  Below: A small stretch of the railway where I played as a child – photo taken in 1980, before the rails were removed.

The other evening, friends were reminiscing over dinner about our childhood antics.  A few of us described a summer ritual of putting pennies on railroad tracks to see what shape they would take after the train ran them over. Then as I perused my Facebook feed the next morning, up popped a photo of wild strawberry jam, posted by a close friend of my sister's. That picture brought back memories of growing up in the Maritimes and especially the glorious scent of those berries filling the air as my sister and I picked them for our mother, who also turned them into a delicious jam.

These two events reminded me of what I think of as my quintessential summer /nostalgia poem.  It seems fitting to make this one of my July Wednesday Poems, so below is Wild Strawberries, from my book Belonging (Sono Nis Press). Though written in the third person, the ‘she’ in the poem is very much me.  Also, I should note that when I wrote it, I was experimenting with letting line breaks take the place of punctuation, following on something I’d read by Al Purdy about superfluous periods and commas etc.  Looking back, I’m not so sure the experiment was useful, and am always tempted to add punctuation at the ends of those lines.  But for now I’ll leave the poem as I wrote it. Oh – and a geographical note for those unfamiliar with the Maritimes:  The Tantramar marshes are on the Chignecto Isthmus around the Bay of Fundy, and are part of the traditional territories of the Mi’kmaq First Nations; the Northumberland Strait is the body of water between New Brunswick and Nova Scotia on the one side and Prince Edward Island on the other.

Wild Strawberries

On this July morning, the Fundy breeze makes waves
on its distant bay
sends gusts like messengers to the marsh
where a young girl stands
still and silent, only her wild hair flying

These are the days when freight trains still speed
across the Tantramar to Cape Tormentine
She rolls the word, terminus, in her mouth
imagines the end of the line, the engine and every boxcar
rising into the sky, their bulk a weightless chain
with the will to glide high and soundless as clouds
above the blue Northumberland tides
Then come to ground at the edge of the Island
ease their wheels back onto beginnings
wherever the rails wait

the way she waits, now
for the rhythm of elsewhere
the click-clack of dreams
and for the call to Come Alo-o-ng, Come Alo-o-ng
an impossible song on a soft wind
that cups her face like the comfort
of her mother’s hands
on this hot day

The girl kneels, knows to put
her weight down slow on the stones
nudge out a blunt nest for her knees
She places her hand on the rail, feels only heat
no shudder
Leans low to listen, ear to steel
her brown eyes wide, watching, just to be safe

She adores the smell of rust and tar and it is
best this close to the track
but on this day the air is also sweet
her nose tingles with the idea of sliced strawberries
She lifts her head
centres her penny on the rail

sniffs at the air, transformed to her rabbit self
leaps across the tracks as if startled
though her flight follows a geography
of other summers, the knowledge of red, ripe
and speckled with the seeds of sunlight

The train rumbles toward her now
its destination west and one day she will follow
see the rest of the world for herself
but this is her place, already she is certain
she will return

What she cannot imagine is a future
when the last caboose will fade into the distance
forever, the rails here lifted from their beds
stacked and abandoned on some vacant lot
herself long gone

She picks up a penny, a good one today
heads home with the promise
of a new shape of copper shining in her hand
the shout of wild strawberries on her tongue