Apples on the Nashwaak

Apples on the Nashwaak tells the stories of five generations of Irish families who called this place home.... a gravel road climbs to a fifty-acre field to where blankets of paintbrush blend into sky. The Nashwaak River Valley runs far below.The field lies deserted now abandoned to wild roses and raspberries. Rock piles--150-year heaps--half submerged in the treeline icebergs of the understorey.... a straggle of old apple trees ... all thats left of a life long gone--house barn paddocks and sheds; gardens behind fences of cedar rail and stone.I come here to run my dogs ... an open door to the wild it stirs the wolf in their blood. This field these woodland trails ... walk them; go deep. Though feet lose their way the mind finds the path to a settled place. The soul inhales quiets soars; begins to nestle in....what follows is free flow a river on the run. Facts carried facts buried--trails of truth through a field of fiction.-from the PrefaceApples on the Nashwaak received the Writers Federation of New Brunswick 2018 Alfred G. Bailey Award for poetry.