Moths

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"Moths"

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"Moths"

Taking the back roads,

driving home,

ditch grass looming green from

the darkness,

a stop sign glowing red

a kilometre away.

Moths fly up like

white and dry-winged gravel

to patter against the windshield

leaving

no mark,

not even specks of belly dew

to convince you

that they're

snow.



˗ˏˋ・。☆.・゜✭・.
AUTHOR'S NOTES
✫・゜・。.・。. ✭

I did most of my growing up in the rural farming communities of north-central Saskatchewan, the bread basket of Canada. The region is flat, dissected by a grid of gravel roads, cut with mathematical precision, dividing one farmer's land from the next—wheat from barley, barley from the bright yellow flowers of canola.

Unlike many other places on the globe, Canada sprawls out across the landscape. The distances between places is vast. Most prairie provinces have two major cities, one north and one south, a 3-hour drive apart. They are twins, birthed by rivers, thrust into adolescence by the railroads, and coming into their maturity thanks to roads and the automobile.

As a teenager, getting your driver's license was a sign of freedom—you could drive anywhere on that gravel grid, see anything, lose yourself in its measured vastness, travel the lines that mark the boundaries of every harvest.

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