Near Kinsella - Jim Stewart Alberta into Saskatchewan crossing miles of frozen farmland distance marked by quickly forgotten road signs and old wooden elevators with proud white letters 8 feet high & 50 feet up the letters now fading but still marking the towns where our grandparents once grew ambitions of someday becoming more than what they were untold lifetimes reflected in the rearview mirror, briefly before passing out of sight attention given once more to this ribbon of cracked pavement flanked by barbed wire fences             weathered and sagging driving east from Edmonton underneath a textureless sky i notice that winter is a thief that all the wonderful colours have been taken away             except for brown and there are a million shades of brown in the leafless aspen and dense willows in the old fenceposts and rusty wire under the peeling paint of lonely farmhouses and old grain elevators             a million goddamn shades and me, trading Alberta for Saskatchewan in late december and already wishing for spring ©2002 Jim Stewart 01/01/02 Jim Stewart spends most of his time lost in the forest north of Slave Lake, AB. comments about this article? give us feedback