So do you miss Manitoba?

Manitoba inForms me centres me grounds me / inLand At the place where rock and water meet / Manitou speaks Manitoba / Speaks to me.

So do you miss Manitoba?

If the centre of reality is / where the heart is if the world begins / where first we see it if home land is holy ground / and ground is the matrix from which we spring / do I miss Manitoba.

So do you miss Manitoba?

The blue on blue of summer sky over flaxfield / the contrast of mustard and rye still rooted / the joy of alfalfa and clover and making hay / mile on mile of rolling hills with contours / fencelines horizons outlined green . . .

So do you miss Manitoba?

So, Do you miss Manitoba?

So, Do you miss Manitoba? they ask / as if the answer were obvious / As if I am neither exile nor emigrant / but an escapee, fugitive perhaps, fearful of capture and / return.

AKA "The Flower Girl"

Wild flowering trees. The Dogwood Challenge. To be continued . . .

II - AKA "The Flower Girl"

Trilliums in the debris along the Flood Falls Trail. Trees flowering in the parking lots--the mall in Chilliwack, the McDonald's in Hope. And Agassiz Tulips on my Table.