Books

Yes - I picked up the books I wanted at the book-store in what they call "The Junction" mall in Mission.
The Junction is situated on flats which had been flooded in the old days. The Fraser River is close by so they built up some barrier banks to prevent it from happening again and it has held up to now.
When I first arrived in Mission this area was all scrub bush, small trees and blackberry bushes galore. Homeless men and drunks would gravitate towards this jungle, sleep on old bags and drink themselves to sleep.
Willy would walk amongst it all. picking up bottles and cans to get some coins for them and as he said "clean up the environment."


One afternoon he took me there on one of our walks and when I returned home I wrote a poem.
The bottle trees.


Willy knows
where there's wood for our fire-place.
We go in the truck behind the industrial site.
I get out to walk
where cars have worn down a rough road
amongst the brush.
It's late winter cold and
trash is everywhere.


I shiver
and am repulsed, not wanting to know
the why of it.
The track widens
and suddenly
it's a fantasy route
and I smile.
Trees are boasting hundreds of up-ended, sea-green wine bottles
on the bare branches.
Late afternoon sun brings out
the emerald colour. They look like lanterns.
Looking closely, I see
the bottles act like terrariums.
Leaves sprout in the small greenhouses.


Willy says
this is where the drunks come at night
to drown reality.
Even so, I think they leave their mark
like Christo the artist who wraps
part of nature in miles of cloth
so we will be more aware of it.
The wine drinkers
have made their artistic statement
and the green bottles sway
in their lonely galleries.


The Mall was developed on those flats and sucked the downtown of Mission dry. Parking is plentiful and Save-On, Canadian Tire and London Drugs are there. And I know not where the drunks go now.
signed knowing art is everywhere - Doris