They're building a new bypass
from the cutoff a road
back of all roads back of
the river and riverside places
Martinon Ingleside Ononette Nerepis
It will link with a road already
houseless its places grown up in
scrub poplars spruces tamaracks or
nuded into firing ranges and mine
fields where if anyone steps
he should step lightly
This is back country I used to know
a little back of the river strips
the first settlers settled Somewhere here's
where New Jerusalem was tht sent
their ball team out with a sidewinding
pitcher every Saturday night to baffle
the Flats boys hometeam to us
from the river cottages And out from the back
road and round astride his ground
back of homeplate Charlie Great War veteran
with lungs still corroded calling
all the pitches immovable
as at Vimy
I know the road I go over and over
house to home and back again Riding
its rises and falls I'm finding
new names to fix onto where I am
in space where I am in time
For this bogan and what I saw one morning
stand out of it Moosewater and its valley
after it For this hill and the townlights
I can almost see from it Lookout
For the white pines that loom over scrub
and scour the old poetic ones Noble
Sentinel and Lofty And for this last
I love red and soft-shouldered
Lonesome
