Every year on her birthday, she captured a rush of wind in a jar and labelled
the jar with the date. It was a birthday tradition she had begun as a child,
a precocious three-year-old, intrigued by the idea that something invisible
could be heard and deeply felt. Shelved neatly in chronological order,
the jars now numbered seventy-five and, as her birthday was in late December,
it was certain that if the winds were ever released, they would blow strong and
polar cold. Each jar displayed a fall of snow, some nearing blizzard conditions,
individual flakes suspended in mid-air, their crystalline structures unmatchable
in radiance. One jar, by far her favourite, contained a honey bee, a victim
of miscalculation having awakened prematurely from its winter sleep.
Its silvery wings were frozen in motion, inseparable from the glitter, while,
stark against the blustery pale, its black and yellow stripes buzzed electric.
Dean Steadman’s poetry has been published in journals and e-zines, as well as in the anthology Pith and Wry: Canadian Poetry, edited by Susan McMaster (Scrivener Press, 2010). He is the author of two chapbooks: Portrait w/tulips (Leaf Editions, 2013) and Worm’s Saving Day (AngelHousePress, 2015). He was a finalist in the 2011 Ottawa Book Awards for their blue drowning (Frog Hollow Press, 2010). His second poetry collection, Après Satie — For Two and Four Hands, was published by Brick Books in spring 2016. He is currently reading Yann Martel’s The High Mountains of Portugal and Sue Sinclair’s Heaven’s Thieves.
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