ON A HILL NEAR STAIG
In the car lot,
I used a fob to lock
the only car’s door
as an old man
walked down from the hills
with an old dog
slowly trotting behind
stopping to smell every post
of the old wood fence
that kept the sheep
near the old ring fort,
an Iron Age cashel,
the sheep teeth
keeping the old grass down
so no humans need tend
to this corner of emerald.
Reaching for my shoulder,
a limb to lean on,
the man smiled Gaelic words
that missed my ear.
When he noticed how they didn’t land
he smiled again, and I nodded,
and he pushed his skiff away
patting a silent goodbye on my back,
his dog sniffing my leg
as they carried on downhill.
Author’s Bio
Evan J (he/they) is the Fiction Editor for Cloud Lake Literary journal, a poetry workshop facilitator with Vallum’s Poetry for Our Future! program, and the author of the poetry book Ripping down half the trees (MQUP, 2021). Evan also just ran across Manitoba.
