A Toast by Alex Pierce
This toast comes from of all of us who are new to Sage Hill, here for the very first time.
I asked my fellow participants how does it feel:
We feel comfort, they said. Welcomed. Everything we need is here. We feel the writer is allowed. There is no need to explain what you are doing. Everyone knows why you are staring into space, with that look. (I could have been in Cuba at a resort, someone said. What a silly idea.)
A feeling of home, but a home just for me. A place that knows what I need. Where “writer” is both an ordinary and a sacred word.
Coming (as I do) from the East Coast, it is the green, the colours of green that strike me most forcibly. Acres of long grass. Walking through fields as if you belonged. That feeling of ownership. And the wind. Wind with intention, blowing through you. Wind that knows where it’s going. The high grass, big sky, clusters of stars, northern lights, coyotes in the coulees running and yipping and howling.
Something about the heat, the long days of summer, the smells of grass and clover, the sound of barn swallows nesting up under the eaves – makes me twelve years old again. Safe at grandmother’s farm. And the feeling is real. The Franciscan Friars have made a community into which we are welcomed. The Writers of Saskatchewan have a long-standing community – into which we are welcomed. It is no accident, the parallels between the monastic life and the writing life.
Who would think that all we would need is a washroom, a bedroom, a bed, a desk, a window, a chair – and a door. (Pen and paper.) We are fed: three meals a day, on time. We are nurtured and challenged by the best of the best, fine writers who are good & savvy mentors.
We become the writer we long for – and see that writer in each other. The thing we love most is everywhere around us. Sage Hill, the idea and its down-to-earth reality, gives us that.
There is no competition: everyone has what they need. Open your beak. There’s the worm. Today the new baby swallows flew for the first time. How does that feel? To be let loose – in air.
And so we thank you, Sage Hill, we salute you – and everyone who works so hard to make the Sage Hill Experience possible – for opening your doors, and taking us in. For making us safe, and feeding us – so we can fly.
E. Alex Pierce
Sage Hill 20th Anniversary
Summer Poetry Colloquium 2009
July 25, 2009