To Be Here

To Be Here: The Writing Place, run by poet Tanis MacDonald, was probably my favourite master class from last weekend. I even bought a couple of her books – one non-fiction and her latest volume of poetry.

She’s also a writing instructor and has her own class up in Waterloo, Ontario. I guess whatever she said sunk in because I don’t have a lot of notes from her class. However, I do have this poem:

The exercise was: “Here” is subject to your own definition: it can be either the ground upon which you stand right now, or your homeplace as you define it, but it should be a definite geographical place. “History” is your lived experience of a place with an emphasis on your (and possibly your family’s) place in it.


“Here” is only a memory
of home/not home
another city, another time
the house that Al built
for his beloved Florence
two thirds of the way down the hill
or one third up
depending on your point of view.
Black walnut trees
manned by squirrels
guarded the road and driveway
flagstone sunken patio above the rock garden
green, green, green: memories . . .
in front of me the steep green hillside
below me old growth maple, beech, and aspen.
Follow the green pathways
down to the sleepy river
or up to heaven’s cascade of colour.
Change catfoots in on the trail of loss
home/not home
the sentinels have fallen to
the axe and saw
stone has been restructured
like pieces of my heart
green is fading, dozed over
the river is somnolent and thirsty
there are houses in heaven now
childhood’s end, ploughed over.
“History” lives only in my memory.