Eastend Saskatchewan: Take One

 April is Poetry Month, among other good causes, and although I'm late in contributing, I am finally settled in at the Wallace Stegner House in Eastend, Saskatchewan and have set myself the happy task of writing a poem a day. It's a very good way to 'shake the language loose' and to push myself, when stuck on long-term large writing projects, to write something new every single day. It's what makes the wonderful opportunity to do a month-long residency here so valuable to writers and artists, the chance to shake up our routines, push ourselves out of our comfort zones and tackle new projects in this upstairs study with a west-facing view at the edge of town. The amazing arts council (Eastend has a population of about 500 souls) maintains and administrates the Stegner House, after buying it in 1988 and restoring the interior and exterior to the original plans. Residencies have been offered since 1990.  

Eastend Saskatchewan: Take One

Today I walked three short blocks
Mostly on sidewalks
Hopping over the abundance of deer poop
Avoiding thick crusted ice packs
The murky puddles and snowbanks
Good thing I wore hiking boots
My down jacket and plaid wool scarf
Sunglasses and my red beret

It was -17 yesterday morning
A blizzard the day I arrived
So I stayed inside this 1916 wood frame house
With a view of prairie sunsets glowing
Like incandescent nectarine juice flowing
Over the snowy Cypress Hills
A westward view I’d call sublime
From the windows of this upstairs study
I cranked up the heat a few degrees
Added more layers of down and wool
Read and wrote and thought and cooked and slept

But today I walked to the school
Gave my Fear & Imagination talk
Complete with mohair tarantula computer mouse and rubber snake
To my K-3 audience who were learning
The difference between a comment
And a question and mercifully the librarian
Had twenty-five years of experience
As a wrangler of unfiltered off-topic
Needy delightful and/or distracting behaviours
 

I read my two picture books and showed the rest
They all sang Twinkle Twinkle Little Star so sweetly with me
Fielded comments about holidays and brothers and ticks
Did my best to answer good questions
About how to make books with hardcover bindings
And about how long it took to write books (True answer: my whole life)
Then the inevitable question forever in the arsenal
Of my K-3 fan base
“How old are you?”