Trans Canada

Pulled from our ruts by the made-to-order gale

We sprang upward into a wider prairie 

And dropped Regina below like a pile of bones.

Sky tumbled upon us in waterfalls, 

But we were smarter than a Skeena salmon 

And shot our silver body over the lip of air

To rest in a pool of space

On the top storey of our adventure. 

A solar peace

And a six-way choice. 

Clouds, now, are the solid substance, 

A floor of wool roughed by the wind

Standing in waves that halt in their fall. 

A still of troughs. 

The plane, our planet, 

Travels on roads that are not seen or laid

But sound in instruments on pilots' ears, 

While underneath, 

the sure wings

Are the everlasting arms of science. 

Man, the lofty worm, tunnels his latest clay, 

And bores his new career. 

This frontier, too, is ours. 

This everywhere whose life can only be led

At the pace of a rocket

Is common to man and man, 

And every country below is an I land. 

The sun sets on its top shelf, 

And starts seem farther from our nearer grasp. 

I have sat by nights beside a cold lake

And touched things smoother than moonlight on still water, 

But the moon on this cloud sea is not human, 

And here is no shore, no intimacy, 

Only the start of space, the road to suns. 

Poem: "Trans Canada" F.R. Scott, 1945 

Photo: James Sutton, from his book "Signs in Action" 1965