Photo by Dylan McLeod on Unsplash

The Welland Canal

A final family day trip before our daughter starts school

Cassie McDaniel
Published in
3 min readAug 25, 2019

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we sit the four of us
on a bench in Port Colborne
facing the Welland Canal
eight feet off a four-legged bench
watching a ship come near

the bridge has already
lifted the road on its pulleys
a cyclist waits behind red and white
striped gates, his concrete path
well above his head now

the ship, a barge, looks miles away
a stalled moment of looking
reveals it moving closer, like clouds might
out of the haze
its colours brightening
its magnitude seizing

we recognize a Q
we place the ship in Québec
just passing through
on her way by the Welland Canal

a little man on deck
or a large man, for all we knew
wearing a yellow raincoat, finally sees us
waves merrily
then back to pulling ropes

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Cassie McDaniel
Cassie McDaniel

Written by Cassie McDaniel

Head of Design at Medium. Words, design, community. Leading w/ kindness. Prev. @ Lattice, Webflow, Glitch, Mozilla, etc. cassiemcdaniel.com