2.2 What Does “Home” Mean?

by admin

Preface

Chamberlain didn’t tell the right story. He told a story, or part of one, but he didn’t tell it properly. He says:

My godmother who with nice irony came from a settlement in Saskatchewan called Qu’Appelle. Whatsitsname.

The place I come from, the place I call home, is not so far from Qu’Appelle Valley, and there schoolchildren are taught that the settlement takes its name from a legend that tells of a man, paddling home in his canoe. The man hears his name called, ghost-like, upon the wind. He responds: Qu’Appelle? “Who calls?” but receives no answer, only an echo: Who calls? When the man reaches home, he learns that in his absence his true love has died, crying his name aloud with her final breath.

And so the valley is branded by this tragedy:

“Who calls?”

Qu’Appelle?

Home

Home is a river valley, in winter, with a heavy cloak of snow; a shroud of silence. The naked poplars and birch form stark, skeletal smudges against an endless white.

Home is a river valley, in spring, come late. Ice, still on the waters, is breaking; there is loud cracking and eager, flowing movement.

Home is a river valley, in summer, warm wind redolent with the scent of wolf-wood, prairie sage, sun-baked clay.

Here are ancient stones, older than the grasslands, older than the sea that once lay atop the grasslands. Their faces, split by glaciers, are wordless.

Home is a river valley, in autumn, painted every shade of harvest. See vermilion, viridian, see umber, ochre, dun. See a gold that touches everything, subtly, gilds everything.

These leaves, every leaf, is the colour of a memory, is a memory; my whole life, articulated in the language of these fading hues. As the season turns each leaf, each colour, turns dark, turns silent, drifting downward. Memory becomes a rich blanket, layered upon the earth, all the colours of time, passing, of roots, growing.

 

 

 

Works Cited:

Chamberlin, J. Edward. If This is Your Land, Where are Your Stories?: Finding Common Ground. Vintage Canada Ed., Vintage Canada, 2004. Print.