IN MANITOBA, CHIHUAHUA

IN MANITOBA, CHIHUAHUA

Preserves of plums and rhubarb, grape jam and peaches, chilled pickles, handmade linguini, a slab of butter and a jar filled with bay leaves. Mennonite pantries here are placed to the north, no refrigeration required. We met Peter Hamm at the Sello de oro cheese factory and were invited to his home. Maria, his wife, sold us slices of apple pie, thick cuts of the cold fruit in generous stacks like stone walls. A workmanlike pastry, blobs of chabacano jam on top. Her daughter and granddaughter spoke on her behalf, weaving Plautdietsch, German, Spanish and English. Peter asked to be photographed beside a wooden cabinet painted sky-blue and white. Brought down from Winnipeg in 1922 on the train by his father, his only worry was deciding to whom it should be passed on. In the living room pride of place was given to a hand-made wooden rocking chair, a gift to Peter on his 80th birthday. He sat down to demonstrate. A perfect mechanism, a movement calm and deliberate. My eyes distracted by flashes of colour from the corner—yellow, pink, purple and blue—a plastic flock of songbirds. On the table, a plastic wolf. 

Around house-shaped house the winter country lay flat and brown with trees with no leaves. Shadows lengthened and it was time to go. As we left we saw Peter through the window rocking in his chair to the silence of God and the ornamental songbirds.

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This is a b-side, kicked out of my manuscript for not pulling its weight. Just didn’t sit right, didn’t work. I’d like to write a much longer narrative of my brief trip to Chihuahuan Mennonite country on the only passenger train left in Mexico (for now). The same train journey took me to Tarahumara country near Creel. A prose chronicle of this trip is long overdue and maybe that’s where this piece will find its final home. For now, it’s here. ‘In Manitoba, Chihuahua’ was published in New Zealand in Doc Drumheller’s Catalyst journal.

I hope Peter’s doing okay, wherever he is.

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I have written a book of poems. Let the Dead will be published by Banshee Press in June of this year. If I have any news, I will share it here: details on launches, readings, festivals etc. I am not sure what else I will use this space for but if you’d like to find out, please subscribe. If someone is mad/kind enough to become a paid subscriber I’ll send you something, like a handwritten poem.