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splinterswerve
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
splinterswerve.hotmail.com

(a pantoum)

by Wendy Morton

 

Wendy Morton at Turtle Valley

They can lift 2x6’s out of a ditch.
Pound stakes into the ground.
They can weld. Weep.
They can drive a bobcat.
Pound stakes into the ground.
They know that work is beautiful.
They can drive a bobcat.
They know the calls of Vesper sparrows, Mountain plovers.
They know that work is beautiful.
They love the cold music of order.
They know the calls of Vesper sparrows, Mountain plovers.
What they know. What is lost.
They love the cold music of order.
The way the air rises.
What they know. What is lost.
Clean snow on hills. Water.
The way the air rises.
They can weld. Weep.
Clean snow on hills. Water.
They can lift 2x6’s out of a ditch.

---

were not the ones appointed
to decorate the church,
to make wreaths at Christmas,
to spend their evenings
on a delightful midnight sleigh ride,
or go out with the bank manager’s
wife to pick maidenhair ferns.
No.

They were the plywood girls,
hired in 1942 by Alberni Plywood.
If you were 16 and
could lift veneer,
layer it into sheets,
bundle plywood,
load boxcars
for 37 cents an hour,
the job was yours.
280 were hired.

By 1971, there were 30 women left.
Most on graveyard.
The Plywood bags,
they called them.

Stay home, their mothers said.
Stay home. Bake cakes. Be quiet.
Clean the house.

Watch out for your dreams.