2000
Listen to Port Weller, read by Lini Grol’s niece, Karin Brenninkmeijer
Land’s end
and at its very tip
an old lighthouse
blowing its foghorn,
guiding the unaware ship
to the safety of the Canal.
Beside the Canal
an old drydock
building or mending
the huge ships that
slide back and forth
through the Canal and
onto the lakes rivers and
onto the oceans forever
exchanging grain for gold.
Parallel to the Canal,
prospering nurseries
with their exotic plants
trees, and flowers.
Grown for their beauty
the seed, or roots only
to beautify far away
luxurious gardens.
Next to it a huge barn
where little-known men and women
spend uncounted hours
to gather and mend
things from our over-indulgent
throw-a-way society
for some less fortunate
in a land still called:
the dark continent.
First published in Kevin McCabe and Lynne Prunskus [eds.], Lake to Lake. Lini Grol’s Niagara. St. Catharines: Blarney Stone Books, 2000, 53
Published in Spirit of the Big Ditch: The Story of the Welland Canals in Pictures, Poems and Songs. Compiled, edited and annotated by Robert Ratcliffe Taylor. St. Catharines: The Historical Society of St. Catharines, 2024
The Historical Society of St. Catharines 