bout de papier, Vol. 8, No. 3 (1991) — Summer 1991 // Été 1991, p. 39
“When winter comes can Spring be far behind”.
Yes, if you live in Ottawa
where winter lasts November until May.
Spring, the stuff of poesie and daydreams,
of “blossomed pear tree in the hedge” and thyme,
of “chaffinch singing in the orchard bough”,
of damsels wooed by swains with songs and rhyme.
Reality, alas, strikes different chords.
The end of winter, when with rue you view
those bulges on your waist and spreading hips
which will not force into your summer clothes
except like sausage, bursting at the seams.
As winter ends and snows beat fast retreat
appears those unseen chores, hidden ’til now.
Then housewives cry “Spring Cleaning” to their mates,
“bring out your brushes, dust your sluggard tools,
for you must now mend gutters, fences, steps,
which winter’s ice and salt did eat away.
Banish all thoughts of swallow in the fields,
for here the cuckoo sings “work-work, work-work”.
Regretfully it’s true. I remember
only once did I taste spring and greening buds
with boughs bursting with sap, and wild wild rose.
I’d just returned from Trinidad, and three
long years of sun, beach, carnival and rum
– a Caribbean hell of heat and sloth,
of decadence and indolence despised!
Quickly I rushed back to the hoary chill
of Baptist Ottawa, to beat my breast
and mortify my flesh in sleet and hail.
But then came Spring. I swear the buds did burst
with sap, as life bloomed forth in greens and golds.
My blood ran quicker, flaming in my veins,
my step more active, virile. Secretaries
on seeing me approach would flee, hiding
in typing pools until my manly step
had past. Halcyon memories! Now when
I see the swallow’s swooping flight
I reach instinctively for tools.
My blood has thickened. Ottawa has won.
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Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 8, No. 3 (1991) — Summer 1991 // Été 1991, p. 39. Read the rest of this issue →
