Back
in Ontario, old hometown farms role away -- hay fields yellow into
the setting sun -- here mamma walks along the old creek bed, damp
with rain in the cold months --- a dusty clay hollow in the summer
that separated her farm from her cousins.
She
walks along the side of the big ol' brick house -- where she was
born, where her brother and sister were born before her -- where
her mother was crippled. half paralyzed for life from birthing the
wide working shoulders of her first born son -- her half body tired
from dragging her left leg as she walked. died walking ÑÑÑ falling
down stairs.
Mamma
stands on the path between the sunrise kitchen and the woodshed,
where nanna grew prize-winning gladiolias -- peach and white --
to match her panties hung on the line.
Mamma
looks out over the cornfields where her youngest daughter lost herself
playing hide-and-seek -- when mamma called Carly Jane didn't answer
-- didnÕt call back -- she sat silent -- eyes giggling -- always
lost somewhere ÑÑ in suburban malls under coat racks ÑÑ giggling
while the lights turned down -- hiding -- she laughed as mamma did
at 14 -- her skirt rolled high over her knees, walking deep into
the cornfields with a smirk on her face and a cigarette in her back
pocket. she lays down on her side, hand behind her head watching
dusk fall on the sky. she reaches for the cigarette in her back
pocket -- but doesn't find it.
She
moves quick along the corn paths, the fading green leaves brush
-- rough like her mother's hand-sewn skirts... she looks up at a
floral housedress -- her mother standing there tapping her shoe
on the dirt -- is this what you're lookin' for Kay? The white cigarette
dangling from her fingers -- a nervous plea -- a disapproving shake
of the head and a sigh --
left
in the cornfields.
The
sun sank behind the oaks and shadows fell. mamma's silhouette climbs
up on the barn -- now 50 years old she leans back on the roof --
looks out over the small farm where she was born with cousins on
every side -- at the fields half ploughed by her father, the other
half dying with her nephew in a suburban hospital bed --
Mamma
blows smoke into the autumn air, into the red warm wind. her memories
follow the landscape -- ghost child walking from chicken shed at
night ghost child spying on her father on a hot muggy afternoon
ghost child skipping, disappearing into thin air
(She
calls me late the farm is lost)
And
the memories are lost as the bank sells the family farm to a big
farmer -- the ol' brick home is torn down and a new plastic siding
house is built -- over nanna's gladiolias -- and the barns where
mamma once played are replaced with industrial-size pig barns --
four stories high -- and the creek -- that once separated mamma's
farm from her cousins' is paved over for the big trucks that my
mother only dreamed of when she played with their small wooden models
along the bank. no one gets lost in the corn fields anymore -- got
ten feet of fencin' round 'em and poison sinkin' deep in the ground. |