This poem was selected as a winner of The Confluence’s 2024 Chinook Poetry Contest. It was displayed at Fort Calgary and published on its website. The contest theme was “Calgary in the Wintertime.” 

EVENING WALK IN SUNDANCE

Earlier, the sun danced on fresh snow
but now Christmas lights make it glow
from within—humble strings on spindly trees
and dazzling displays: a neighbourly show.

Sundance School is shuttered for the season.
I am muffled by scarves but for some reason
I can hear their laughter, see my children’s
boot prints and frozen mitts. I lean on

the playground slide and let memories sift.
My children are grown now and adrift
in a swirl of birth and death and commerce,
in a city so large it can only shrug at the gift

of them and roar on. I listen for cars
on Macleod Trail; hear only sirens and stars,
singing in a hooded sky, smiling on
the metropolis in its quietude and its wars.

Final stop: Sundance Lake. My toes are cold
and the sharp air tears my eyes as I behold
thousands of lights in the towering trees.
The bokeh beauty unfolds and I am consoled. 

Note: Bokeh is the blurred quality or effect seen in the out-of-focus portion of a photograph taken with a narrow depth of field.

Photo Credit: Katherine Matiko