Lesser Spotted Bunting

Saturday, June 02, 2012

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.