Susan Gillis’ most recent book, Yellow Crane, was a Jurors’ Selection in the Grand prix du livre de Montreal and a finalist for the ASLE (Association for the Study of Literature and Environment) Creative Writing Award. www.susangillis.ca

All the way to the horizon

umber fields unrolling.

Ribbed, stubbled,

dark but for patches in the hollows

where snow persists.

Mid-field, brown lumps

shift, seem to breathe,

resolve into geese.

You feel it would take you

days to walk to where they are

and this makes you yearn

to be there this instant

though last summer

before the grain was fully ripe

you’d have given everything, almost,

to be nowhere at all.

The girl bends to the grass

to tie her shoe.

Her shadow

flows into the pond

where earlier

the mother held the bag of breadcrumbs

while the girl cried —

no,

it was the mother who cried.

One of the laces is knotted

and stained dark blue.

You have to be very close

to see it.