Our Aunt Grace, Grace Lillian MacKenzie Callan (1916-2004), began to write poetry and musings, and to paint, as a young girl…
As a young woman, she was quarantined in a hospital for an extended stay due to having contracted tuberculosis while a nursing student. Grace found beauty in her solitude, and her art began to emerge in the form of lonely seascapes and poignant love poems. She continued to write well into her eighties.
When our beloved Aunt grace passed away, cousins Valerie and Garnet found her poems and writings scattered over the three floors of her home in Victoria, British Columbia, in every nook and cranny, on paper, shopping lists, napkins—everywhere!
Aunt Grace wrote that she wanted her poems published, and that her hope was: "…to help others to enjoy, or to aid in their efforts to write to others in the name of sympathy or encouragement."
This is a poem Aunt Grace wrote in the fall of 1946. She would have been delighted to know that it has been included here, in Journey of the Heart, her grand-niece's blog, along with those of so many other talented, like-minded souls.
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| The Butchart Gardens in Victoria, British Columbia |
October
by Grace M. Callan
An acre of October
if wishes but came true;
I'd wish to have an acre
to see the winter through.
I'd have the russet apples
on yellow-golden trees,
and orange, red and brilliant hues
of Western maple trees.
The deep wine red of Orient plum—
with birds to sing on through
the usual morgue-like winter
that is cold, and silent, too.
And so, upon the threshold
of Winter's bleak halloo,
an acre of October
I wish could see me through.
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Lynda Grace Vargas is a retired foreign language and elementary school teacher who loves romance languages and opera. She lovingly dedicated most of her life to being a full time mother to her three children and editing her husband’s law books. Growing up as a Patrick, one of the most well know families of professional ice hockey players and coaches, Lynda spent much of her youth performing in figure skating shows. She holds degrees from Vassar College and USD in education and lives in San Diego. After having been married for over 50 years, Lynda is now adjusting to widowhood as she leads a vegetarian lifestyle, reads, watches hummingbirds and teaches herself German: her fifth language!
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