Sharon Berg (Western Voices 2023)

Bio: Sharon Berg is a Canadian author working in poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. Her work has appeared across Canada, in the USA, Mexico, the U.K., the Netherlands, India, Singapore, and Australia. She was Poetry Interviews Editor for Artisanal Writer for a year and has now placed interviews with Event and Freefall magazines. She also writes articles as well as book reviews for a variety of periodicals. Her third poetry book, ‘Stars in the Junkyard’ (Cyberwit, 2020), was a finalist in the 2022 International Book Awards and she won 2nd place in the 2016 GritLit Poetry Contest. Her cross-genre history, ‘The Name Unspoken: Wandering Spirit Survival School’ (Big Pond Rumour Press, 2019), won a 2020 IPPY Award for Regional Nonfiction. Her debut collection of short fiction, ‘Naming the Shadows’ (Porcupine's Quill, 2019) was also well received. She lives in the tiny hamlet Charlottetown, Newfoundland, Canada, in the midst of Terra Nova National Park where she runs Oceanview Writers Retreat since 2022.

A Successful Lie

When I was eight

and my sister who stayed 

in the same bedroom 

was four and loved me

 —  I loved horses madly.

I loved horses when

they galloped or cantered,

when they raised their 

head to neigh or

lay peacefully on hay.

Laying in bed sick I

wanted company dearly,

so I thought of drawing

a horse on my wall

beside my sick bed.

Satisfied when the horse 

I imagined was drawn over 

me, cuddled in my bed

and curtain-darkened room

I faced consequences.

I knew I faced trouble

if my mother thought 

I drew life-sized on my wall

so I’d drawn the horse roughly,

just well enough

to be recognized as

a horse bowing down

to communicate with me.

I faced my mother’s anger

saying my dear sister

was the one who drew it,

proven by how poorly

that horse was executed.

My mother was confused

knowing I was a better artist.

My horse companion came 

to be cloaked in regret

as I blamed my sister 

for drawing a horse 

she doesn’t even remember.      

***

Charlottetown, a Photograph

Clouds hang like smoke

over the hills across the bay,

echoing the fires

that took hectares of forest

this summer, further 

west of this coast.

These clouds spark no 

evacuations, signal 

nothing more harmful

than the land’s desire

for rain and lush vegetation.

Seagulls and ravens seem to

compete for attention now,

calling loudly from the shoreline

though I’m too distant to see

what concerns them.

Instead, I see dots of red and yellow

I know as the government wharf

through leaves on the aspen

that block my view.

Few boats took our harbour

from strong weather this year,

but parades of cars drove along

the road to visit the hamlet,

touring through in just a few.

Nothing is predictable here

least of all the tourists

this late in the season.

The sun begins to peak

beneath grey clouds far across

Clode Sound by Platters Island

and all falls unseemly quiet

for minutes; no waves,

no wind stirs the trees.

It seems I am looking

at a photograph, 

a moment captured

on the mind’s eye 

and gone swiftly

when a Junco lands 

on the porch railing.

***

---

Western Voices 2023 :: Setu, February 2023