smsteele

Cottonwoods at Lone Hand Ranch

June 2008, no summer in Penticton yet;
the rain last week more like March or November.
Last night it hailed, then poured for six wet hours.

In Summerland, the apricots froze.
This is the coldest June on record this centennial year;
and at LH Ranch all the trees are down,
all the cottonwoods have been cut, dumpstered and removed.

And east of Zhari two dogs whimper,
Await their master who is not there;
and at the airport in Kandahar a soldier is ramped home.
His photo on the ‘National’;
his life, beauty, presence removed by chance
like cottonwoods at Lone Hand Ranch.

DBJ Snyder
June 2008

— smsteele



This war?  Afghanistan.  smsteele's chartilng of it: warpoet.ca

TVO has mapped where the 152 Canadian soldiers killed in Afghanistan come from.  Overwhelmingly they are from rural Canada.

TVO. The rural/urban divide, 2010