You lie awake,
needlessly fingering
this patchwork guilt.
Remorse, a code
you live by; distress calls
for someone to blame.
—from “Threads”
Following the deaths of her Mennonite grandparents, Angeline Schellenberg began exploring their influence on her life. Her elegiac love letter to them articulates her grief against the backdrop of their involuntary emigration. She artfully captures the immigrant identity, vital to Canadian culture, in poems that draw on events both personal and global: war and famine, dementia and cancer, hidden sacrifice and secrets. Her poems captivate with themes of ancestry, memory, resilience, and forgiveness. Fields of Light and Stone is a reflection on how family history shapes and moves us.
Everything There Is to Say • ix
In some reminiscent hour
Love Letters, 1944–45 • 4–47
Time in Evergreen
Resurrection • 7
Tokens of Mercy • 9
This Is His Body • 11
Threads • 14
Beckoning Hills • 16
Preaching to the Choir • 17
Dementia, Warm October • 18
Grandpa’s Day Timers • 21
For When You Wondered Why I Wasn’t There • 23
The Minute I Heard You Died • 25
After Eights • 26
Funeral Tape • 28
Clouds above Canola
Gardening Advice from the Wife of a Pious Pastor • 33
The Autumn of Your Cancer • 35
Scavenger Hunt • 37
Between Seed and Harvest • 38
For Your Name’s Sake • 39
Closure • 42
The Night of the Fair • 44
Are you sewing, Mom? • 46
Deep Breathing • 48
What Little Things Come to Us • 49
There Is the Old Brick House • 50
Fields of Light and Stone
Fields • 54
Shivered into Being
In My First Five Year Diary • 57
Making Sheep • 58
Unwinding • 59
Oma’s Girl • 60
Bias Binding • 61
In Whispers He’s Still the Wanderer • 63
All Is Bright • 64
As We Left They Sang • 65
Edges • 67
Division • 69
What the Aspens Whispered
Under the Shadow of Your Name • 73
He Made Me Promise to Remember Arkadak • 74
Ancient Script • 76
Generations • 77
Plans to Prosper • 78
His Hands • 79
Sunset on Deep Bay • 80
Souvenir • 81
After the Funeral, I Pick up My Box • 82
Passages • 83
The First Trees • 84
Notes • 85
Acknowledgements • 89