The Life and Times of Alice Maude

by Leslie Smith Dow

  watched it brim pink and red

  and joyous in your colours

  no more of flesh but spirit

  CITY

  restless and tall

  Gumpa bent his back against the wind

  until it bent him

  back and back and away

  from the shivering fields of grain

  and golden trees of fruit

  to the city

  southern

  perpetual

  in his pictures the mop of untamed hair

  eyes unruly too

  unmistakeable

  the wildness within

  shotguns late-night trips

  across the border

  with the demon rye

  liquor comes from cupboards now

  small comfort

  to a ruined body

  hair still unruly

  kicking screaming

  until the city finally fades

  to the fields

  GAMEBRIDGE

  Even in old age

  Alice Maude dreamed

  of horses racing horses

  low in the sulky

  crouched skirts flying

  tickling the bay mare's haunches

  with the whip

  faster past farmer's nags she dreamed

  to the narrow stone bridge

  wheels glancing off wheels

  horses foaming wild with the race

  flying crashing wheel over wheel

  hurtling toward chaos

  chaos on the brain now

  galloping away over the barren lake ice

  clutching at the sides of the cutter

  eyes narrowed

  searching for the landing

  invisible in the snow but never lost

  GNARLY BONES

  each piece of fabric

  cut by your gnarled hands

  once meant something more

  these coats and pants and dresses

  worked hard in the fields

  in the kitchens

  now repeat themselves

  on bedspreads endlessly

  like you

  muttering from your chair

  your gnarly bones

  cutting and cutting away

  at the fruits of your labours

  BAPTISM

  down the lake when father

  took the evening horses

  into the gentle lapping

  they thrashed and foamed

  away all traces

  left no plough no mark

  left gleaming

  from the water

  of their daily baptism

  lay me down in that distant shallow

  feel the water run and run

  over me like years

  wash away again the traces

  of this hard-scraped dirt

  baked by moons of sorrow

  here as a child I am

  I hear the wildflowers hum

  SIX MONTHS OF PLENTY

  only your grandmother's grandmother remembers

  those Irish hedgerows

  replaced by stump fences

  fields of stone

  all yours

  in the spice-hot summer

  those old tubers

  sprouted fine potatoes

  and hearty children

  without hunger

  six months into the land of plenty

  before crusty water on the morning pails

  frozen breath hanging dark in the halls

  timber wolves baying

  outside your winter doors

  THUNDERWOOD FARM

  in the colours of dusk I see you

  coming across the field

  I hear your feet on the path as it winds

  you hold out your hands

  they are the shade of age

  the texture of my dreams

  of thunder and wood

  the winter haze rising

  again and against the shore

  against the piles of ruined ice

  tumbled and cold

  as the stones of Thunderwood

  as a scrap of black muslin

  beckoning me

  towards the pit of our ancestors

  OLD REBEL YELL

  day by day

  she carried her musty face

  perched on top of

  a brittle bird body

  her sunken cheeks rose powdered

  mutter outside the windows

  her bony fingers

  walk through all the trash

  only on the inside

  of her canary head

  does she scream

  through darting eyes

  at everything unwanted

  at their gapes and stares

  no admiration

  for an old rebel yell

  EPITAPH: CHALK ON LIMESTONE

  your memories are written in limestone

  in fields of rock and scrub

  in pastures of green sun

  in a brown girl running

  you are remembered

  on verandah nights

  in the breeze and smooth

  in the scrape of crickets

  and when all the carved words

  have fallen into chalk

  under the marching moss

  your story will still be written

  your story