Once

The house was one faded
bone grey
like a healers lodge
two story hammered together
from wagon loads of fresh lumber
timber hauled through with chain
drive machines
steam driven saws
screaming
their teeth honed by men
who had scalpel precision
with their hands

whom turned silk thin pages
of the hymn and sang
with the high octave lady clans

In winter the windows would
shake the storm breath
buffeting and the chimney
would sing
the smoke stealing
across the open feilds

the locomotive cut
where steamers would
plunge through
their cinder breath hot
and spiced from
bitimus fires

and under the quilts
when the lanterns were
turned low
when the last story was
read

when the house was at
rest and full of night creaks

she would stare at the
ceilings listening to the voices
the pretty voice was her
favourite
the one that sang with the
wireless hooked to the
battery  The ground rod
her
father pounded deep
her mothers hands
holding the staff of iron

she had unwound the coil
of wire herself and turned
the hook through the
eye of the ceramic bushing

She loved her father

and when she and her
brothers gathered round
to hear Fibber McGee and Molly
she had her own show

they told her the magic that
was real
that she was special
when the wagons and democrats
pulled past she would sheild
her eyes at the edge of the
garden
the nodding orange poppies
flamboyant the leaves spiked
and rationed

her dress flowing in the hot
summer winds
her feet hardened by chores

she was happy

dreaming was vivid carnival
She had read about that
from the paper
sitting in winters splitting
kindling for the nickle plate
woodstove
Filling the water heater
with buckets of galvanized
steel from the spring

She imagined Carnivals
with acrobats and mimes
magicians and displays
and she walked the cool
steel rails in the shade
of the cut with her mothers
old black umbrella

Traced her fathers name
chiselled in the hard
rock cut when he was
a young man

The moon was harsh and
brilliant on the snow
and the lower meadows
were full of hares
and foxes

She cuddled Milly her
favourite doll
her confidante
and the wind sang hymns
and commercials
and the house creaked
and the wireless antennae
hummed dirges

and the voices spoke of
many many things

and the moon sailed
until she slipped fast
away to the vivid scenery
There