Qualicum Beach, British Columbia

Scandinavian Picnic at Markerville

The idle burnish of an ancient cowbell grows courage on a barn nail.

The sun, bright as an Icelandic night,

sends a satisfied gleam across the buckboard-wide table

crowded by near empty silver-capped jars:  Gran’s jaw-shrinking dills

and vegetable marrow, prunes in sweet profusion, placed around bowls

empty of slaw and chicken.

We set out, refreshed warriors, into the bush

where cocklebur wounds, nettle gangrene fells us,

one by one into a respectable death, worthy of Valhalla.

Resurrected by the evening’s cool peace

we sing in the hayfield, sharing space with the giants of Jötunheim.

This impossible mixing of realms, of dwarf and elf,

possible only under a seafaring sky.

Carol L. Mackay’s poems have aired on CBC Radio and have recently appeared in issues of CV2 and Prairie Journal.