NorthwardPoetry

If I could walk out into the cold country

If I could walk out into the cold country
And see the white and innocent dawn arise;
The mist stealing away, leaving the low hills
Bathed in pale light; the pink unreal sun;
The jagged trees stabbing the cold, bright sky;
If I could walk over stubble fields white with frost
And see each separate small beaded bladed
Loaded & edged with white; or climb the fence
Of grey and twisted wood, to find and eat
The crab-apples in the pasture sharp with frost;
If I could shelter, shivering in a clump of woods
To watch the chill and beautiful day go past;
Perhaps I might find again my lost childhood,
A ghost blowing with the November wind,
Or buried in the wood, like those dead pioneers
Whose tombstones I found overgrown with brambles
Their names erased, in a unfrequented way.


From the New Oxford Book of Canadian Poetry in English 1983