Maple Spring, Montreal 2012

Poets bark out words in squares of red,

strange bubbles that float heavenwards 

over island city streets, above Victorian

hospitals, lake of beavers, the cross.

Classical music explodes into the day

like slowly drifting cherry blossoms,

gathered into the echo of one single note,

the red of the rose with the thorns.

On the metro a ballerina puts on a crimson dress

and starts a slow elegant pirouette, her energy 

building, twirling into a tornado of creation, a red 

wind whispering and blowing over daily marchers. 

Paint splatters the pavement, vermillion hands

grace bewildered buttocks of passers-by.

The statue Jeanne Mance has a make-over,

De Maisonneuve, in a new land, wears a red scarf.

But no one is muffled, speech is a lively fire

behind masks with curly mustaches, under

paper mache heads, behind banners -exposed,

youthful faces rejecting the failures of our age. 

When a ruby and violet sky darkens to black,

neighbours emerge into the summer night

to greet each other on steps and street corners,

sounding a discordant lullaby on pots and pans,

and in the morning youthful feet stomp together 

once more as bold, and without fear, as the redwing

blackbird in free flight; the path to a ‘real’ new world

as simple as putting one foot in front of another.