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| Rock Outcrop by Oryst Sawchuk |
GORDON BAKER
THE SUDBURY BASIN
She was born in the void of space and fell to Earth eons ago, in a time and place that were her destiny. The Sudbury Basin has out-lived mountain ranges, seen the tropical waters of the equator break against her rim, and witnessed the passing of the dinosaurs.
The Basin has survived countless ice-ages, been a part of the oldest rock-formation on the planet, and was nestled among the greatest forest that ever flourished on the land. She witnessed the building of the Great Pyramid, and saw the rise and fall of the Roman Empire.
The Sudbury Basin wavers before nothing: not man, not the elements of nature, or time itself. Today, she stands proudly as she has done since the beginning of time. She was there when our planet was a child, and she will be there when our planet takes its last breath. The Sudbury Basin has left us a timeless identity that stands in wonderment, at the summit of all landmarks on our planet.
* * * *
SHELBY LASK
POEM
I sit upon these crater-sized rocks
and I look down to see a large town
I see a city filled with pollution
what man would call the new revolution
the smokestacks have frightening gray smoke
I see teenagers taking a few tokes
I see cars speeding
but more forests receding
I can’t help but watch and wonder
is our city in blunder
I hear young children swearing
yet the parents so uncaring
men say we have evolved
from ape to human
I say we’ve de-evolved
from human to monster
And I sit upon these crater-sized rocks
and look down to see what one would call a town
* * * *
ANDREW HAWKINS
Andrew Hawkins is a 22-year-old Sudbury resident. He holds a B.A. degree from the University of Guelph and a B.Ed. degree from Queen's University. His current literary interests include Ted Hughes, Robert Graves and Steven Jesse Bernstein. Regrettably, a prolonged episode of writer’s block is encumbering progress on his first manuscript.
THOSE WHO DIG THE GROUND OUT FROM BENEATH THEIR FEET
I have returned now
To the emptying black crater,
To the lakes with no fish,
And sour rain-water.
Drunkards now, the flora and fauna.
We implore the atmosphere not to kill,
As their fleshy lungs our children fill
With smoke, steam, smog and soot,
And many things we could not know.
Though stubborn are the people.
Back then to a simpler time...
We plundered the foundations for all their worth,
And burned and roasted without reserve.
We stood at the precipice with no beauty left to behold,
Gaped in bewilderment at the vista,
Irrevocably barren, sterile and cold.
For decades, we clawed our tattered carcass back from the brink.
We thought, then, our water safe to drink,
And pumped the waste elsewhere
(To our southern friends with love).
Then foliage twitched, floundered, and swam back from the dead.
In the sky, the canopy thickened like hair grown back on a bald head,
And clotted out the refuse of the beast we had slain.
A beast that seeped through soils, shale, water-table, bedrock;
Which nestled deep into the frail and aging impression in the ground.
The environment we had conquered, so we thought.
But we awoke a ravenous beast of a different sort,
Which perked up an ear to the dwindling stock of the earth.
It festered and groaned, lingered and churned;
And when it breathed, we tasted sulphur in our noses;
When it rolled over, we felt it in our bones.
Yet we paid it no mind;
Instead we tallied overtime.
Little did we inquire of the beast,
Feasting on the last reserves.
Now the reservoirs are beginning to burst,
The once fertile ground at menopause,
Rainforest burned, evaporated to desert drought.
We are tossed between continent and continent,
Deprived of agency like a child’s ball
In the hands of reckless
And short attention-spanned youth.
On hollow soils beneath our feet
We tread only so warily,
Until the osteoporosis of the skeleton
Accelerates brittleness of bones;
And, in a fury of blinding confusion,
All those tunnels, channels, quarries, and chambers
Come down and down,
Impaling the sleeping surface giant.
We are drunk on the whiskey of denial
Of anything everlasting; buried in rubble.
Though, God, I hope I am wrong.
* * * *
JON DANYLIW
SUDBURY
In Copper Cliff, still, a horizon of grey stretches
unbroken, save by the green snot of sludge. Below,
a rock abattoir butchers the bedrock,
dumps its viscera in piles on the edge of town
where the trains stop knee deep in entrails. They lurch
opposite boarded window hotels with hourly rates,
lunchtime drunks and whores. There, the fleshless skulls
of burnt rock rise from the hard, ashy ground.
A fleet of bent hovels on this ocean of stone
sprawls across the waste, the rock tundra.
Conquerors, earth skinners, eaters of life –
we rule this defeated land.
Here our children suck on smoked stones, dig forts
into slag-heaps, frolic in tailings ponds – here, we laugh
at cancer, chemical poisoning, sulfur clouds and acid rain –
here, we are home.
And now, a delicate film – a new skin – is drawn up
over gravel shoulders, de-muscled bones,
and grass grows to cover the wounds of a long denounced battle,
ridding us of the war-scars that marked this place our place.
* * * *
AMANDA TURNER
Amanda Turner is a proud Canadian writer, poet, and literacy advocate. Recognizing that effective communication requires dialogue and understanding, Amanda sees past ABC and arithmetic, towards social change. "Words shape our reality, in both their meaning and misuse. They're powerful."
A NICKEL MORE OF THOUGHT
A city within a city.
Like the surface of the moon.
The energy here is palpable,
In times of bust or boom.
The people love their terra,
The waters and the skies.
They celebrate the seasons,
The land – the bond that ties.
For sure there is technology –
Advancing healthcare, space and beyond.
But in step the progress marches,
With the gentle bird’s sweet song.
To those of you who wonder
Why some of us may stay?
We say – we live in Sudbury,
Because we choose to live this way.
* * * *
* * * *
CHRISTINE POROPAT
Learning English in Grade 1 propelled Christine Poropat into an early and lifelong love of reading and writing. In school, acknowledgements and some prizes spurred her to greater efforts, English grammar and literature being favourite subjects. She once wrote poetry in small notebooks in secret. Now, she's thrown caution to the winds and decided to have fun.
ELEMENTAL SUDBURY
Cataclysmic beginnings
Cradle of flame and fury
Born of the rock hurtling through time and space.
Home of those brave enough to challenge
the earth and wrest their living from its grasp.
Evolving into a place of comfort and family,
peace can be found amid
the struggles and chaos of our lives.
We glory in our green spaces,
reclaimed with effort and diligence.
Lakes, rivers, wildlife and scenery bless us
with year-round joy and enthusiasm, the zest for life.
City and country-life meld with the many and varied
faces of this region, the crazy quilt that shows
the joining of hearts and minds in this place,
this Jewel of the North.
