11.12.18

Vancouver Writing: Frank Davey

VANCOUVER

I watch the workmen
take the steel braces
from between the frail concrete
of a new building,
while next door
an old redbrick one
is battered into slag
and burnt.

Years ago there was a tent here
- you see the picture in the Centennial Anthology -
then the campfire ashes
were kicked aside
and frame and clapboard
- still scented with the breath
of first- seen timber -
hammered together.

Later
grey stone brought in from somewhere east
shining bricks
                      from Clayburn
- short years of barter
bringing it about
short years of human eyes
regarding one strip
of sterile dirt.

        In the mountains you can see
        the ghost
        the ghostly towns abound:
        Huntingdon
                            a skeleton of noble streets,
        Barkerville
                            a green- hung
        grey- board mummy,
        Fairview
                      some grassed- in ashes
        pheonix moved on.

But here
the ashes are made
and hurried away,
by generations of men
whose children
fight to build castles
daily in the sand.

(see Frank Davey's blog here)