The Crown of Ash
Poetry & Prose by Britt Wolfe
They call it freedom—
but only the kind that can be bought.
Pipelines dressed as promises,
classrooms stripped for parts,
nurses burning out while billionaires
buy new yachts.
This is Alberta under glass:
cracked but polished,
a stage where the premier
performs prosperity
while the foundation gives way beneath her feet.
She says she’s for the people—
and maybe she is,
if by people you mean
corporations with lobbyists,
or the whispers of oil executives
writing her speeches behind the curtain.
Every library closed is a warning.
Every privatized hospital bed
a tombstone.
Knowledge is her enemy,
solidarity her fear.
Because an educated, organized people
are the one wildfire
she cannot control.
And still—
we rise.
We gather in streets,
in union halls, in whispered kitchens.
We stitch new banners from old betrayals,
and lift them higher than her towers of glass.
She will call it chaos.
She will call it ruin.
But when the ground finally shakes beneath her,
when her crown of ash collapses to dust,
we will not mourn.
We will call it justice.
We will call it future.
We will call it ours.
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