Synkroniciti is excited to welcome back Canadian poet Angela Waldie, who won our “Recovery” poetry contest last year, with two lovely poems tracing the delicate patterns of transience.
“September Winds Calidris himantopus (Stilt sandpiper) ” observes Stilt Sandpipers feeding near a shallow prairie lake, a short stopover on their migratory journey to warmer lands.
“Perhaps this is all I can imagine/ of migration—to stand on a muddy shore/ and watch the flocks that choose/ this brief oasis as stopover/ a caesura in their journey/ a day to feed and flock, flock and feed.”
Birds have always featured in the collective unconscious as messengers from beyond, beings that can escape gravity. Angela points out that they are, in a sense, wanderers. Their restless journeys mirror human migration: unsettled, never-ending quests for safer, warmer, more nurturing places. Through her wistful imagery and soft alliteration, she evokes wind, water, and the quiet ache of impermanence. We are conflicted, tempted to lift off with them, leaving our own settled lives behind.
“Moving Day” is a heartfelt tribute to photographer Vivian Maier, an American street photographer whose work was unpublished and unknown until after her death in 2009. Her prints and negatives–many of which had never been developed, were found in boxes and suitcases in her home.
In the photograph Angela describes, people are in the midst of moving, and Maier appears only as a reflection caught in a mirror—an accidental self‑portrait of a woman who preferred to remain unseen.
“But you are watching, as you always watched,/ not planning, when you left for a walk that day/ to be stilled in a reflection of someone else’s transience./ You had your own.”
Waldie honors Maier with a gentle, attentive gaze—observing the observer. Her masterful use of repetition creates a soft pulse of admiration, tinged with awe for a woman who chronicled city life in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and around the world while leaving only the faintest trace of herself.
Read Waldie’s quietly soulful poetry in Synkroniciti’s “Patterns” issue, available here: https://synkroniciti.com/the-magazine/purchase-individual-issues/.
Angela Waldie is a writer, editor, and university instructor, living in Treaty 7 Territory, in Calgary, Alberta. As she grew up in Creston, BC, her poetry often crosses and recrosses the Continental Divide. Her first poetry collection, A Single Syllable of Wild, will be published by Frontenac House in April 2026. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Prairie Fire, Grain, Event, The Goose, Feral, The New Quarterly, Freefall, Synkroniciti, The Antigonish Review, The Willows Wept Review, and various anthologies.