Refugees of Reason

The Last Man Standing in the World

Looking west. The dropping sun pushes light across the smoky clouds achieving the pinkish colours of a fading maple leaf left hanging too long on a school yard flag pole. Scraggly branches part like stage curtains silhouetted in front of thinning light. As if to emphasize my bit part, the flatness between here and the horizon, and the light beyond, dominates the landscape, darkening with each passing moment as the Saskatchewan plain turns once more away to hide itself, only to reveal its vastness again tomorrow as it has convened for millennia. A rich inkiness descends. All is quiet; this expanse of the world caught between the blackbird's last chirp for the day and the cricket's first chirp of the evening; not a breath of wind, not the slightest, as if every molecule, every electron, has chosen this instant to pause. Silence. Oppressive stillness. My involuntary expiration becomes voluntary and my breathing is arrested. I could be the last man standing in the world ... and there ... distant ... just audible, a truck begins to gear down on the other side of the Qu'Appelle a full two miles away to the north. Its drone will continue now for minutes, increasing to a crescendo when it will burst upon this stage and thunder past. At least one other actor exists still in this world. I stand some time longer, my thoughts drop their revelry, acknowledge the world exists, and, no longer alone, I turn towards the farmhouse behind me as one actor passes another.

~gtk

I was visiting my father in Moose Jaw a few days ago and stayed alone each evening on our family farm. Our farmyard, though surrounded by trees, is very close to number 2 highway near Qu'Appelle valley. There is a break in the trees at one corner of our yard and many times over the last 50 years I have stood there to watch the sun set. I wrote this poem one evening.