To a Fencepost by Bob MacKenzie The town jail was built on 3rd Ave. where the old Post Office now stands. The Mounties were told of a homesteader, who was baptising his fence posts, one by one, in the name of the Lord. The loneliness had just been too much for him. The Mounties brought him in, and he was one of the first to be lodged in the jail until he could be taken to Calgary. The school children all detoured around that way on the way home from school. When they peered through the bars he spat at them. The Hills of Home Drumheller Valley History Association Drumheller, Alberta 1973 This great dome is not the sky I have known; Nor is this the quiet land where I was raised. The sky and the land are eternal here; Any horizon is less than a myth. What heaven could be so high and unseen, What gods so missing from this soaring blue? I have come unasked and have made this home; My house stands stark and strange upon the land. What god can possibly patrol such reaches; What temptors prey upon this silent void? The quiet of my homeland brought me peace; Here I am alone with the silent threat. As a cordon around my home I post thee; In God's name and my own, I anoint thee. I baptize and deputize thee to serve; Here great shall be made small and we shall rule. With this well water I commission thee, My one defence when God is not around. Him that crieth shall go unheeded here; In this wilderness, who is there to hear? He shall come as a thief, without warning; This new world shall bend to the rule of God. Until then, you shall be the only law: God's brigade against surrounding demons. To God's glory and in His holy name, I cleanse thee and I purify thee now; I charge thee to keep out the wilderness, Defend me from the evils of this land. This is your commission, and this your charge: To stand steadfast and to serve only God. |