Photo by Kelly Rebar
Every year I’m taken there
the air the light the sight
of leaves
drifting past
without a care I’m driving
in the Rockies
in my old Plymouth Valiant
a shade of bronze
you don’t much see
anymore
colour of stubble
fields
at sundown
I’m barely 23, endless Christmas trees
line the highway
now it’s the mountain peaks
the sun is tinging
pink I think I even sing
(I wouldn’t put it past me)
Neil Young’s Comes a time
when you’re driftin’
Comes a time when you settle down –
Okay, what’s this
side of the road
a herd of elk
just standing there
watching
five in total
the reason I recall is
I write it down
when I get there
the cabin I’ve secured
for winter
and right on cue
like a movie
I pull up just when
it’s not dark yet but getting’ there
now that song also takes me there
to that door
the smell of firewood
stacked by the door
I watch the kettle while it boils
I open my notebook
on the kitchen table
by a window
with green curtains
and lo and behold I find a candle
meant for emergency
but at 23 who waits for that
you see a candle
you light it
I write September 1978 on the first page
No, hold on, it’s not a notebook
it’s a school scribbler
dime store type, Hilroy, map of Canada on the cover
timetable on the back
and bottom left:
30 days hath September
April June and November
I write what comes to me
how people in the past wrote it snowed all day
baked so many loaves of bread
as if it needs to be said
“Saw five elk on the way here”
and leave the unpacking
for tomorrow
but when tomorrow comes
I don’t unpack
too busy
sitting
in the sounds of silence
a woodpecker tapping
in a nearby tree
maybe I imagined that
but I know this much is true: I set my Smith Corona
on that kitchen table
by the window, the green curtains
and I tap too
all day long
tap tap
tap tap
into the next night
and all the days
and nights
after that
Who knows where those words are now
they’re long gone
but not the sound they made
landing on the page
not the smell of firewood
by the cabin door
the leaves gathering on the window ledge
the candle going out
I probably slowed
the Valiant down
when I saw the elk
I’m willing to bet I did
you never know if they are going to stay
or if they will wander
. . .
Working from the small mountain town of Nelson, BC, Canada, Kelly Rebar has written for theatre, film, and television. After a long hiatus, she recently returned to playwriting and created two one-woman shows, both written in verse and scored with music. She also works with photographic images, old and new, and writes short poems.
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