THE VILLAGE THAT WAS DYING

W Lennie Gallant

HaVa you ever heard the sound j a village that was dying? I [heard it - just last night it was, Uke a heavy, hollow sighing.

[heard it in the Legion Hall,

In talk of oil rigs and big bucks, imnd three more leavin tamara!”

lg round of beer for good luck.”

lheard it in young girls' voices,

meir yoing men they will follow.

Md in the young men's nervous laughter, M the jokes got hard to swallow.

It was there in an old man's salty eye, it's his last year on the sea.

'Six generations it's been,” he says, ‘%nd now it ends with me.”

Md in the echo of my footsteps, g I stumbled towards my home

md paSSed my old deserted school, mmty, unfamiliar, alone. '

m was in the creaking of the signs mat swung among the fishing boats, Ewing out for t0urist dollars,

md a chance to stay afloat.

ks, last night I heard a sound w a village that was dying;

Md tonite, far, far from there Ihear a distant seagull crying.

/

, SECOND CHANCE by Judy Whitehead '

Friend of my college days

It was defiant then, the sex and fun,

But the knowledge of loving you did not come and when it are; we had parted

The damage was done.

But later and oftener I wanted you there to be my friend.

Friend again of'my older days

It is joy now, the shared sex and fun. We know ourselves and can plan ahead We are together, the rift is healed, and our love unsaid.

So now you are here And as we live, you are my friend.

The Christmas Tree by Pat Ingraham

In dark December comes a day

With Christmas not too far away,

When someone, puffing and cursing it all

Drags a naked evergreen into the hall.

Then out come the baubles, the tinsel and lights, And after some struggling - and one or two fights — It glows in its splendour, announcing with cheer, “0.K. everybody. Christmas is here!”

And there it stands with its twinkling lights Through the busy days and the firelit nights.

Little by little around its base

The parcels gather, like garlands of lace, Until with the ahwning of Christmas day The children descend to whisk them away.

But the tree still stands with its twinkling lights Through the busy days and the firelit nights.

Though it slowly fades and its needles fall, Its spirit remains to remind us all

That again it will stand in majestic glory Tb remind us all of the Christmas story.

And next year it will stand with its twinkling lights WmmhflemwdwsmdfieflmfitMMm.

Friendship I?” by Beverly—Anne Bishop

Shy and unsure

they clung together. Necessity held them firm. To other the confidence

to mix and laugh

came easi ly .

Uncertainty held them back. And so,

Between them a

.warm friendship slowly grew.

Until with each other

felt a calm.

Secure, accepted in

their web. ' Unaware that others watched with longing gaze,

to have that

feeling of companionship with just each other.

, Merely two,

without the rest. 4 boy and girl, flung together.

*Dependent on one another,

Shy and unsure they clung together.