Shannon Webb-Campbell
in the truck, on the way up,
we talk around the meaning of marriage,
we find an uncharted knowing
driving down dirt roads, passing sheep,
old barns, soon-to-be-made memories, alpacas
by the time we make it to the highway,
we conclude, love is truce,
a pact to honour and protect
one another’s solitudes
wedding guests come from faraway places –
Iceland, Montreal, Calgary, Toronto –
to witness your wilderness love
many note: romance can be found in
late night coffee shop Hawaiian donuts
your love holds space for tenderness,
tent city, bar, Camp Mockingee
and most boldly: Just Married
your love is tied up in vintage floral bowties,
a bear and fox, dancing together
to 90s hits, stealing glances across summer camp
your love is a Rae Spoon song,
“Habitation” read aloud,
“Short Talk on the Sensation of Airplane Takeoff,”
“Ocean” as both guest and poem
your love is Atlantic,
resilient and resounding,
a place to live by,
an essential to life’s raft
your love never forgets to bring
the condiments, it sports matching plaid,
it leans in, and looks out
your love is handsome new haircuts,
first canoe paddles, spines along dock,
eyes up to the Milky Way
a savoured last bite of campfire S’more
while you carve out a space to spend
the rest of your days together,
watching re-runs of Roseanne,
remembering all this
Shannon Webb-Campbell. Photo Meghan Tansey Whitton.
Shannon Webb-Campbell is an award-winning poet, writer and journalist of mixed Aboriginal ancestry. She is the inaugural winner of Egale Canada’s Out in Print Award and was Canadian Women in Literary Arts 2014 critic-in-residence. Still No Word (Breakwater Books, 2015) is her first collection of poems. She lives in Halifax.
