Canadian Writers Abroad

Derek Webster‘s poem, “Marina,” is from his Spring 2024 collection, National Animal (Véhicule Press/Signal Editions). Webster has lived in England, China, and the United States. Read more about Derek Webster, his work, and Mark Sampson’s review of his book next week.

Marina
by Derek Webster

Wind pushed us up the long hill, toward
your family home, lodged in a crown of chestnut trees
and tendrilled ruins. My backpack bright with badges
sewn during long nights on trains and buses

clacking past sheep in County Galway,
spinach fields in Surrey, a cheese town in France,
children running alongside the moving windows,
toward the eastern reaches,

the sweet beers of Prague, neo-Nazi skinheads
in the subway at night, slowing to pass
Romany villages then onward
into Slovakia, to Presov, your home.

We hiked the Tatras, took refuge in goat-breaks
from passing storms, sang Ave Maria,
ate borsht in the shelter, cooled our baby-pink feet
in mountain streams.

When I’d returned to Canada, you crawled into the lap
of your aging mother. You drew the clouds over you
like sheets. The machine pumped air lungward.
How much more? “Soon,” they said, “no more.”

Marina, I would walk the ocean floor, cross Atlantic ridges
and trace the Rhine upstream to knock on your door.
To hear Joho on the banjo, Seki with his accordion,
and Katerina starting another song.

—	from National Animal (2024)

Some Previous Poems

• “Leaves, Birds, Marigolds, Sky” by Blaine Marchand.
• “A Singaporean’s Love Affair” by Kelly Kaur.
• “A Piece of Rag Wrapped Gold: III” and “The Days After the Disaster” by Robert Hilles.
• “Shipwrecked” and “A New Epidemic” by Kate Sutherland.