in search

cool, cloudy, windy, and gloomy

yet i drive to Cold Lake
and on road, i see none
except, occasionally, another clown
but driving opposite

still a little snow

not yet melted
and i am sleepy
trying hard to keep awake
while steering my wheel

i’m inside my car

only gently hot
and, like my luck, i just passed
the high way to Red Water
the 700 million gasoline barrel hamlet

but Smoky Lake

the pumpkin capital of Alberta
i did enter
not for eating
but a drive through was my purpose

passing the village of Vilna

copulating scene i saw
while the eagles on roadside tree
disregarded me, a peeping tom
but with dislike towards a villain

once young and fertile

land, after being caressed, harassed
harvested, and, many times, ransacked
now abandoned like that old grandmother
in care centre, are those reserves

discarded cars, buses, and many

disposed automobiles with farm machineries
scattered through the countryside
with derelict log houses and desolate barns
speak loudly of the human greed

Spedden, the little settlement

with two Ukrainian catholic churches
with hardly a space for secular breathing
caught my attention
but with that Chinese restaurant

i continued to speed

in search of what i know not
lamenting not my passing Lamont
that city living country style
perhaps, the undeveloped basement

Elk Island was my hope

in that journey on that wintry spring
a few buffaloes, a few elks, a beaver
if i’m lucky, that’s all i needed
to see to believe in human race

13.04.2004