Great Lone Land
A hot iron sun blazes
sometimes the colour of wild roses,
and at others, golden rod and flax,
and brands the tips of an endless sky.
The wind never stops here.
The wind, it blows east,
riding long freight trains
to a point beyond the parallax
of Kreisel’s broken globe.
Thunderheads lick a flat earth
with wet kisses and rainbow promises
of mythical gold
to be found
at the edge of the Canadian Shield.
This land, this Great Lone Land,
humbles me, always will,
and makes me so unbearably small.
The dust of this land
of wind and blue sky
forms a burr under my skin
sea spray can never wash out
even after years.
Awash in waist high grass
at the crest of a bluff,
I tack into the wind
to return to my car.
Mitchell once heard
the wind whisper his name
in the coulees
where cottonwood and sagebrush
cling to creek banks
and Palliser watered his horses.
If you listen closely,
you can still hear voices
in the rumble of tires
against tar highways
where traffic streams
on a hot summer’s day.
~ Rob K. Omura
Rob K. Omura lives in Calgary, Alberta, Canada where he practices law. He holds a BA in psychology and MA in history from the University of Calgary, and a LLB from Dalhousie University. He recently returned to his love of writing after a 15 year hiatus. He is active in education, law reform, the environment and the outdoors. His fiction and poetry appears or is forthcoming in The Arabesques Review, Barnstorm, The Rose and Thorn, Agency, 34th Parallel, Poems Niederngasse, edifice WRECKED and blue skies poetry. He is currently working on a novel.
Leave a Reply