Alberta Hull Ottawa

Alberta Hull Ottawa

1994 - 2019

jp melville

Hull, across the river from Ottawa,

between the Alexandria bridge and the Champlain bridge,

sitting by the river, on a rock, on the river bank.

An old man walks past me,

his eyes searching the sand and gravel

and then looking off to the distance downstream,

he kicks a can and ambles on.

My entire time here has been spent leaving;

I will miss nothing.

In fact, since I left Thailand, Benin, Kosovo… so many places,

that's been years and years an eternity it seems,

much of everything has been, or has felt,

a distance removed.

I watch the busses and cars roll along over the bridges

and on the road on the far bank

and I see toys filled with animated manikins.

I see the tall apartment buildings

and I know that inside them

people laugh and weep and worry

and watch television and apply cosmetics.

I am unmoved.

A seagull takes off from the wharf

and flies skimming mere inches

over the rippling surface of the river,

the water is oily, black,

cold as the brisk wind cutting into the back of my head,

the dried weeds long gone to seed

russle in the sharp breath of coming winter.

There are twenty nine seagulls standing on the wharf,

all of them facing to the west

from which comes the wind and into which the sun now sets.

A small metal boat with a tiny engine sits anchored

one hundred yards from shore,

bobbing vacantly.

A small airplane in the far off sky,

wisps of cloud.

Moved by something.

On the far side of the river,

directly across from where I now sit,

I can see myself,

Many years ago now,

I had just moved to the city to be with a woman,

who became the mother of my children,

there I am walking down from the road

and working my way through the shrubs and trees

to reach the river bank,

I strip to my black underwear and dive into the river.

I was told later that the water was filthy

and that no one swims in the river,

but I knew then as I know now

that the water was a blessing

where for a few short minutes

I could rinse away the phantasm

I have now only begun to describe.

I have not swam in the water since then,

I have come only like this moment to sit by it,

not because I fear its dirtiness,

but because I do not wish to threaten

those people whom I know here in these two cities,

them thinking darkly:

'Oh, he's the one who swims in the river.'

Moved by the river, and the birds, and the wind, and the sky.

I was leaving then, leaving Hull and Ottawa, for the west, to Alberta.

Wondering what the world would bring me there.

Alberta - big sky country?

And now, as circles turn and water flows, I leave again

forever wandering

carried by the river and birds and wind and sky

yet again I know not where.