Cedar Bridge
Past the town, past the school, past the antique market. The sun works messily over the reclining crops. Then shadows: cedars bend over the trodden, hollow ground. We run past glowing patches.
The Street Sweeper
Hose water runs downhill along the gutter. Clumps of leaves divert, creating rivers on the side of the road. The sun shakes light from crosshatching waves on asphalt.
Magnolia
Like paper formed in the cupped palm of my hand. Up high where I can’t reach. Black-limbed branches with streaks of sunlight in my eyes. Wind shakes us, and I can’t hear it, but you hold on.
Ephemera of Love
January is gone and Cookstown is especially quiet. This time of year it seems like the town holds its breath: the busy season is over and spring will have to wait. One heavy snowfall warning follows another, and my family hasn’t left the house in two days.
Winter Walk
The colours of Cookstown winter are all browns until you look closely: see the soft hay of dried grass, and the gentle green of a withered leaf, complete stillness of blue snow in shadows of sunset: Just the stillness I was searching for.