My Heart is Moved – Bernadette Wagner

My Heart is Moved

My heart is moved by the meadowlark,
lifeless, at the side of the road, by the rumbling
army of tractors pumping Earth toxic and by the hazed
air as sunset shifts to charcoal from magenta;

My heart is moved by treed coulees spared from developers’ agendas,
picnics in the Qu’Appelle Valley and red shoes,
by lumps in breasts, stars and the tracks between Davidson and Regina
that Canada’s National Railway has removed;

by Aurora Borealis, satellites junking space
and the sky-scraping grain terminal
on pot-holed highway 22, its tall spire
a middle finger salute to family farms;

by the bird that is first
to chirp at the pink of a summer’s day, a dog’s
constant yip and the uranium debate — as if there is one —
by continued colonization, the peace movement and my kids.

My heart is moved by calloused fingers strumming guitars, owls’ eyes
in the dead of winter and the full moon outside the window,
by the line of your cheek where it curves toward jaw, your
gentle hand caressing my hip and the energy we raise.

Bernadette Wagner‘s work is rooted in her love of land, commitment to grassroots activism and the spirit of the prairies and has appeared in journals, anthologies, and magazines; on radio, television and film; in schools, on stages, in the streets and on the web.  Her collection of poetry, This hot place (Thistledown Press), was shortlisted for a 2010 Saskatchewan First Book Award.