'Elliot Street' (Saskatoon, December)

Elliot Street

Saskatoon, December.

A small clearing some hundred yards or so
from city traffic.  In another place,
a village green.  Triangular, guarded
by year-end snow, the fingerbones of trees.

My place, my country. I come here each day
to watch the snow uneven out, the chase
of fog mites in the clearing-lamp, to hear
the ghost leaves of old Augusts at their talk.

Beyond, the morning and the evening cars
hoot and fishtail through the trees, but mostly
all’s quiet as fidelity and lets
the stations of the day move softly by.

I’ve tried where the cars go.  A traveller could
do worse than happen on a space like this
where nothing’s asked or thieved, where the bitters
of time unsour and fall beneath the snow.