Stephen T. Berg

The day I stood on the clipped grass of Olds College – after palming Norquay, Chinook, and Neepawa, until my fingers had unlocked their doors, and I could smell the loam and feel the wind, and see three months of rain and heat, in an amber seed of Hard Red Spring wheat – I saw kaleidoscopic rings around the sun. And at the sun-dog-ends of those high-noon rims, were more rings intersecting, and at each intersection, like Ezekiel’s wheels in…

I can’t believe God lives outside the house of earth, beyond the lawn of stars, and the fenced-yard universe, out in the timeless cold, his raw breath, his radon brow, ridged, veiling nebular eyes, and his fingers, freezing as he writes down names in a book, for later. Of course God prefers the clamour of pubs, the company of welders and waitresses, the warm feel of a beech wood pool cue, the chatter on wharves and in hair salons, the…