Shelley A. Leedahl

I have been doing some reflecting lately.  I wonder if it’s a natural thing to think back when you are away from home (SK).  The other night, Leif invited me to read with some folks (called Red Mile Revenge) on 17th Ave (an attempt to bring back art and take away some of the hockey madness on the popular strip).

Well, I picked out four poems to read.  I usually like to have a theme or a centring idea when I read.  So I found poems that I wrote for girls that I met/dated before Leah (since she wasn’t around that night), plus it was an easy way to get a joke in and relax the audience.  I read three love poems (two of which are posted under the Works section) and then I ended them with the one I am about to post.  

During the winter of 2005, I was accepted into the Saskatchewan Writers Guild’s Mentorship Program.  Shelley Leedahl was my mentor for four months.  The first time I met her was at my first SWG AGM in Saskatoon at Gerry Hill’s open mic.  Gerry had asked me to read, but I completely forgot to bring poems.  So I tried my best and re-wrote this poem on a napkin and read it.  After, Shelley came up to me and talked to me about that poem.  Little did we know in a couple of months she would be my mentor.

This is the first poem of mine that Shelley heard and it’s the same poem I finished with the other night.

Terminal

I leave you here
with this old leather suitcase,
cracked memories, so heavy
neither of us can lift it past our ankles
and you insist we drag it
together, a plough tilling
drought soil.