I always look for a piece of work that speaks to me before I offer any words of comment.  This one does.

I often wonder at the way mundane tasks make my mind wander, rambling from snippets of what surrounds me to, what seem to be, completely unrelated trains of thought.  I often find myself retracing the steps of my imaginings to understand how I arrived at my destination.

I love the way this piece is evocative of that and also the effectiveness with which it captures a snippet of life.

I also wonder after reading this again...is it just the cattle..."instinctively migrating to places elsewhere"

Sunday Night Roast - February, 2003

by Carly Svamvour

Parts of what once was a grazing animal
have been cooled and covered with some 
     slightly un-handy wrap.

Windows shudder, confirm the prophecy
of the coldest days of winter - record 
     breaking, the weather gurus say.

The Global Lady raises her eyebrows
to the rafters and goes on to tell of Saddam;
his idea of laying down arms is not quite
     the same as ours, here in The Western World.

Hands still greasy from the slicing
of tomorrow's sandwich meat, I smoke
the butt of my after-dinner cigarette,
     then return to the latest book-on-tape.

I hear tales of another woman's yesterday, 
the hopes and dreams of adults who prefer 
their offspring remain in the frames 
     of Norman Rockwell forever.

Somewhere, North-East of Toronto, cattle moan, 
shuffling the tight confines of their stalls, holding 
the memory of ancestors, instinctively migrating 
     to places elsewhere.

…………………