Joanna Gilman Hyde

My Mother’s Life

on McNutt’s Island

my growing up summers

was a life of fantasy

with oil lamps and well pails

seafood from Shelburne Harbour.

Eye was My Mother’s right arm

living out Her play-house dream

marrying a man of Her approval

who fathered my daughter Eliza

the year My Mother died

of a malignant brain tumour

at age 59.

That fateful year of 1993

a fantasy developed in me

not of place but of man —

a little man Eye could never have —

and My Daughter was distanced.

Today She drives with Her Boyfriend

to Hinton Alberta

for a winter job of beetle probing

while Eye look at photographs

of My Mother’s Island Paradise

in preparation for the publication

of McNutt’s Island Journal

written by Elizabeth Walden Hyde

during Her 84/85 winter

out there

alone.