Crowds of Orchids

Wenda Salomons, (Pinhole camera)

 

In Calgary, in the Shaganappi Golf Course by the Bow Trail,
the coyotes are singing above the city’s sirens.
At 5 o’clock the robin begins, at 5:30 the house finch,
and with it, the blunt rumble of the city rises like a giant bubble.

Close your windows to the noise, and you’ll miss the songs—is what
I tell myself. Sometimes I listen.

Above the sovereign Rocky Mountain horizon,
a helicopter beats out prophecies of traffic.
By a calm watercourse, under the elms and spruce,
the first golfers have arrived; one stands apart,
studying a place in the distance, unconscious
to everything but the arch of his swing and the flush strike.

The entire scene, not unlike these birds,
single-mindedly singing at the edge of the freeway,
like they have this voice of knowledge,
and they can’t keep quiet.

There are crowds of orchids yearning in this alkaline city,
like the bodies under blankets, slumped near the C-Train,
or the steely couples in the corridors of money, who do not
go out to the foothills and wait into the evening,
beside a small fire,
smelling the river and feeling the loam beneath their legs.

Alright then, sit here with me, in this abused park.
The finch is not forensic, the robin is not revelation,
There will be no examination. There’s nothing to conclude.

Only to wait. Perhaps a taste of enchantment in the purples
of crocuses, or a flash of holy on the wing of a pigeon,
in the cant of a street light—and if not, well enough.
Wait, listen, sooner or later some Francis-like saint
will come whistling, like those birds, to gather up
all our troubled applications for hope.

 

22 Comments

  1. I love the idea of someone gathering up all my “troubled applications for hope.” I imagine them caring for them better than I can. Thanks for this and for a nod to my work. A happy surprise.

  2. Breathtaking poem. Then a deep breath as I listen to those birds. Now I am down by the river feeling the loam under my feet. Thank you for sharing this wonderful poem.

  3. I could hear the birds, sense the flowers and smell the scents in the spring air. Thanks for the pictures in your words, Steve.

  4. Once again, you make me want to write, Stephen. About the trilling of red-winged blackbirds by the Highwood River. But I have to make supper just now. So I’ll let it percolate in my mind for now. Thanks and blessings on you for this one. 🙂

  5. Beautiful… i don’t want to miss the noise of the birdsong. Of course touched by arch of his swing and flush strike

  6. “Wait, listen, sooner or later…
    …to gather up all our troubled applications for hope.”

    that final sentence resting gently
    in my heart

    Thank you Stephen -^-

  7. I just returned from the base of the Rockies – farther south in CO – and took in the birdsong from the foothills on the front range. The time there with friends, birds, and wildflowers, like your poems, are salve for the soul.

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