The Voice Within

Resurrection

 

 

It’s April, and the last of them have arrived, in memory, spirit and otherwise. Curses, and things left unsaid, undone. We will never see 1994 again, and all other years will never seem quite the same. There are some moments I keep to myself, flashes and stream of consciousness that creep up on me unsuspecting to both haunt and soothe. If ever there was a time to withdraw, this is it. They should have laid you out in Exhibition Stadium, but nobody else shared that connection with you. It would have been a private service, just you and I, somewhere that only we had. Another time, another place, this will all make sense. It will eventually mean something profound, something to base my whole philosophical outlook on life.

            I carved messages on your stone. I made a promise to never look back, to never come back. I even thought of not coming today, to make some grandiose statement and imply that I am better than all of this, that I have something else that is superior and that I would not share it with anyone. But nobody asked or demanded. They let me have it.

 

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            Somebody explained the resurrection to me. Not in a linear, narrative way that almost seems secular. And not in a religious way, which would have made me reject it outright. It was something else…

            I have never taken the train on such a seemingly long journey. Into the darkness of Northern Ontario and beyond, I would have felt more secure travelling in spurts during the day. My thoughts and visions would have been different. Conversations float through me as I participate, like an out of body experience. I play the part, react in the appropriate ways and laugh at the appropriate times.

            But I look for signs of life. Not a light, nor the abrasiveness of a town. I look for silhouettes, a movement in the darkness. This morning, just as dawn was creeping up, we rode along the edges of a small lake, a small community hovering to its edge in the distance. Ice still stubbornly clung to the edges and I imagined what it looked like in the winter.

            I have been riding with a man who works for the railway. He is on his way to his posting in the bush, on the lookout and the ready for any trouble with the lines. Three months on, three months off, alone in the wilderness unless something tragic happens. Free food, place to stay – just be ready. Ready for change or the inevitable passage of time. Next stop is his.

 

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Stones and stigmata

Upturned, moved, revealing the myth

Shrouded in infamy

Walking…

As I press my fingers into the holes

Revealing oaths and blood.

 

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            Winnipeg in the springtime, caught between loss and pilgrimage - somewhere in climate purgatory. Trying to cross over. The image of Portage and Main levels me like a song by Randy Bachman, incident to the tangible. I touch the concrete and renew my sense of discovery, boyhood fantasy converging into reality and experience. This is what emancipation feels like.

 

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            Snow in April. I woke this morning, completely oblivious to the fate nature (and you) had brought me. What was the message? You closed down the city, closed the schools, wreaked havoc in the countryside, just to show me that you hadn’t forgotten. Something to keep me off-balance, always guessing. Asia saw it for the first time, a foreign anomaly forging part of his culture and heritage. When I woke him up, I said “you have to see this. You’ll never see anything like this again.” Snow in April. It’s both a celebration and a dirge. Absurd, but not so debilitating and surreal to suggest apocalypse or reckoning. But did it have to be a storm? A freak snow squall is to be expected, but this? Until next time…

 

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            The bushes have been dug up, stones (white) arranged in the shape of a heart. You can read the names and dates now, solar lamps (disguised as rocks) rescue it from being nocturnal. Shin and Asia stood by the slate, running their tiny fingers along the engravings. We cleared leaves away and counted the flowers out (just to be fair). Grandma had talked earlier about an apparition, something she mostly hears in the night. It’s you, and I think she wants to tell me something about it, but she is being cryptic. She looks so fragile, and her house has grown so small.

 

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            It’s tomorrow already, and don’t think that I have forgotten. The images you gave me – you and your father in the boat, on the river – have not been lost. There were moments that I keep tucked away, ones that I still keep to myself. Things you wanted only for me. Pick me up. I’m picking you up now, and carrying you upstairs, where Shin and Asia wait for stories and memories.

 

 

John Bernard Bourne

Brockville, Ontario

2006-2007