My Prosperous Solitude

My Prosperous Solitude

cross-legged

on the chesterfield cradling a mug of tea

reading Hugh MacLennan’s ‘Barometer Rising’

I determine that the salve for suffering is art

I stop just short of the right margin in reverence

it is in my prosperous solitude I promote him as

a big, brave lead – thinking of him in 1917 in his

house on 197 South Park Street a ten year old

Hugh MacLennan washing his knees for school

when at 9:05am two vessels laden with explosives

collided in the narrows of the Halifax Harbour

the North end of the city razed yet the two-storey

Victorian dwelling Hugh lived in stood a lonely 

tomb in the rubble of a shattered city aflame

            twenty-four years later

he penned his primary novel – a conclusive illusory

account of the catastrophe – its alleged truth glowers

among the yellowed pages of the tattered copy I

acquired from a miles long yard sale that wound

its way along the Eastern Shore – a welcome find

although I’m not prone to reading war stories his

account woven with romance and intrigue caught me

            after supper

dressed in a warm coat pulled up above my chin

I took a brisk walk for a drink downtown and on

the way back home found myself atop Citadel Hill

surveying the modern skyscape of the very city

obliterated by the 2nd largest man-made explosion

after the atomic bomb – it is astounding to me that

Halifax was once small enough that Parade Square

barely big enough to house the Women’s March

was the town center – upon the Citadel with the

company of my headphones Gord Downie croons

the last line of ‘Courage (For Hugh MacLennan)’

it streams into my ears and makes everything feel

tentative in full circle fashion to know that just

across the once ravaged harbour there is a bar

fatefully called ‘The Watch That Ends The Night’

I should make a point of buying that book next

***

Just a little something I wrote on my travels in the sun yesterday. I actually stood atop the Citadel for a minute and marveled at our city and its history. We are lucky to live here.

In propinquity,

Nic