On Leaving Calgary, June 2007

I’m leaving a bit wound up
kinda groggy from Cowboys

cheering and hooting. Here, there
is always something big brewing

close on the heels of something
even bigger. Seems everyone

is on the home stretch, hand over
fist to riches or fame, a living

national treasure, just like the movies.
Strenuous hours afford the still

impressive illusion of the good
life: Angus beef on the barbeque,

horses loafing around in the west field,
children whinnying up a future

on the flats of Fort McMurray.
Still, I will miss thick swirls of white

waving in the dark, how snow
drifting muffles religious mumbo

jumbo and softens the perverted
menagerie of daily news. I will

miss the long and graceful
body of the sky, prairie storms

rattling the edges of my bed
sticking the chin with a much

harder slap than the darling spit
of coastal rain, hardly rustling

silence, never ending. After
I’ve chiseled off bubblegum

glommed to the screen door
patched a few walls full

of holes, and spruced up
the bathroom with paper

flowers my children decorated,
the nut house will be empty

for the new tenants to fill with
the same stuff we are moving out.

I will number all my tears
for Calgary and should a westjet

pilot be bouncing me along a YYC
runway again, I might mock

distress that the ocean has been
paved over, but there will be many

to visit, many more who care,
and not just about hockey.

~ Sean Wiebe

Sean Wiebe is the principal at Heritage Christian Academy in Calgary and is completing a doctoral degree in the Centre for Cross-Faculty Inquiry at the University of British Columbia. His most recent poetry can be found in Misunderstandings Magazine, The Windsor Review, and Arabesque Press. He has edited two collections of poetry, The Last Red Smartie (1996) and A Nocturnal Reverie (1994).

Leave a Reply