Montreal

[angou_kohaku]

Here is a poem illustrating my thoughts on my first few days after moving to Montreal.

November Landing in Montreal

I remember the fog.
There to greet me when I
open the curtains.
Steam vents,
car exhaust, chimneys, and
my breath
join the amorphous throng.
It occupies the city
-heavy, oppressive-
drumming in bloodthirsty silence
for the fall of snow.

City of gray and brown;
bright billboards peer out
of the gloom,
like faces,
calling out slogans both alien
and familiar yet skewed
by foreign tongue.

Montreal,
on the first day, you woke me
with thunder.
Left me quivering in my hole
-whiskers twitching-
wondering when I will become
a part of you;
no longer a guest.
How long…
already I am
embraced by fog, kissed by rain.
A new romance, still strange
on my skin.

Stone and steel,
brick and glass;
I watch you rake the sky
with your luminous fingers
and thrust through
subterranean corridors.
I wonder what you intend with me?

I stare down your glossy streets,
-from a pigeon’s-eye-view-
watch a child board a bus,
-livid yellow upon the asphalt-
parents hidden by umbrellas
waving goodbye
-or perhaps au revoir?-
as it is borne away
into uncertain future.
I recall the train ride;
clutching my possessions
as I rode to my marriage
with destiny.
-no mere date, this-

There was no time to court you,
Montreal.
Tossed together,
betrothed,
by capricious fate.
A cultureless mutt;
A descendant of Englishmen;
Can you love me?

The gulls cry the same here;
I find myself grateful.
White-on-white
as the horizon swallows
another line of buildings.
Windows glow dulled yellow,
-the eyes of stony faces-
but you are not looking at me,
Montreal.
The glowing eyes of my own
hidey-hole
look the same from the towers
out there.
Dark shapes move across
between me and the light.
No one can see me
through the fog.