Part Three,Continued.

                      "To everything there is a season,and a time to every purpose under Heaven..."











When those two soldiers, or two policemen come to your door,you think you know what it's going to be like. How could you not.Most people are not ignorant of such things.It's been talked about before.In very few places is the possibility of such things ignored. So you think you know what it will be like. You've imagined what the day will be like, and you think you know.But you don't. You think you know how you will react, what the sensations will be, but you have no idea. You might even imagine,as you reach for the phone that you know exactly what the news will be, because you've been prepared by circumstance and situation.So you just say, on your way across the room, this is the day.It's not really unexpected. You might well be surprised.

I crossed the floor, toward my open door.Where is that damn phone anyway?I'm going to have to spent time hunting for it.But it's right there on the bed.Sit down.Pick it up. I thought I would be steady, but my fingers are not and they fumble. My father's been sick for years.Drinking,two packs a day,driving the car at ninety miles an hour. Stroke after stroke. I can barely track his conversations now.Today's the day. Some things slow to a crawl, some things speed up. I can nearly feel the house as it creaks and breathes, weathering a Calgary winter.

And then I'm talking to my sister.For the life of me, now that some time has past, I can't remember which of my sisters it was. But I heard these words:" Mom and Dad were coming back from Fredericton. there was an accident on the Berry Mills road ,and Mom didn't make it."

She proceeded to tell of the events.They'd gone to Fredericton to pick up one of my sisters kids, my nephew. The weather was bad, visibility poor. As they were passing the city dump, only about ten minutes from home, a young man just getting off work crossed the center line and collided with their van.Both he and my mother were killed. My father was taken to the hospital, already crippled with infirmity, and now with all of his ribs broken. My nephew was in the hospital as well.

My one thought, the one thing that mattered most to me at the time: did my mother die instantly?Or did she suffer? "No," said my sister. "She lived for a short time, but was declared dead at the scene." Impaled upon the steering wheel I'm told, her life pouring out onto a cold icy road. And I wondered what her last thoughts had been.My great fear is that they were "There are only moments left now...and I haven't seen my son in over a decade." There is no way to know for certain, But that's what I imagined them to be.

Part Three.

           "I am a pilgrim, and a stranger, while traveling through this wearisome land..."

Time passing.People passing. the first funeral I ever attended was in grade seven.My paternal grandfather left this world, probably too soon, for want of taking care of himself. Thomas Graham followed in the early 1980's, a man well aged, nearly one hundred. His wife, Alta Graham, my maternal grandmother followed in 1987. Her life spanned the twentieth century, and I though I'd never see her fade.But she did, of pancreatic cancer. I wanted to go home for the funeral, but did not.

In the mid eighties, a co-worker, Charmaine, called "Charlie" was taken while driving a cab at night. Stabbed fifteen times. In her casket she looked sallow and melted, and we followed a long procession of taxis to the graveyard where some small amount of ashes were place in a slot in the ground.So small! Steven Bascom passed in 2003, of natural causes. He was sickly, but what is natural at the age of forty two? In 2005 John passed of a  ruptured abdominal aorta. Aged forty six. I didn't get the news for months.He was a room mate and a best friend, but I only heard from him from time to time after I moved to Calgary.

The two policemen were gone, and it was a long way to that red cellphone,somewhere in my room, in the house I lived in, up on Calgary's north hill. Wind blew small wisps of snow through the tall yellow grasses out back, and an insidious frosty draft leaked in the edges of  my closed window. 

Part 2 continued

Perhaps one of those native spirits blew down from Nose Hill with the wind.I'm told they wander up there. Down across the houses clinging to it's edge.Perhaps it brought the dream, as I dozed yet again on this lazy Sunday,with the television on low and a cool draft seeping in my north facing window,covered in frost.

I'm in what seems to be a laundromat, with washers churning and dryers spinning.In the window something yellow tumbles past, the something blue.Up through the center of the room there is a tree growing.It's lower branches are tree branches, but up in it's crown it turns into an eagle, a huge eagle that is the whole upper part of the tree. I look up and the great eagle sees me and lifts off, flying away, through the laundromat, which has no roof.As soon as it has flown, it is replaced by another, which has grown out of the tree,and appeared as though the tree were never without an eagles body.Then I'm walking through tall yellow grass with snow blowing all around.

Slowly I awake to the muted television.I haven't been asleep that long.Beyond the door there are muffled sounds.Someone talking.I can feel the draft from under my door, and I know the front door is opened. Then shuffling of feet.More than one pair. A knock on my door, and I cross the small room. I open the door.It squeaks. It needs to have the hinges oiled. Open it slowly.

At the door there are two uniformed police officers, a man and a woman. Another draft of cold air. The woman is tall, hair done in a topknot.Her name tag says H.Broughton. She's almost as tall as her partner. Her partner asks"Sir, are you Michael T.Davis?

"What can I help you with."

"Are you Michael T.Davis?

"I am"

"We've been contacted by your sister in Moncton, New Brunswick.You need to call her as soon as you can."

"What's going on?"

"Sir, we wouldn't be here if this were good news.Call your sister"

I ask which one and the officer says her name.Then the two of them are gone.I watch them climb into their car, then turn southward down the alley.A cold wind is blowing in and I shut the door, then go search for my phone. 

Part 2 Continued

Images of the first years. Scenes and sounds and scents.Locked in my mind now, making this place home, or as much so as it can be.Images. I can see the pictures.Two buildings dropping to the ground.Burning first,inward parts melting.Soldiers off to war. Two soldiers approaching a doorstep. The soldiers are outside the door. A wife, a child, sibling or family awaits within. Two soldiers outside, they don't see the soldiers yet. Eating the evening meal.Rising in the morning.Telling bedtime stories.Once upon a time...

Rolling into town on a Greyhound.Muscles aching,dark rings of sweat and grime around the eyes,hair dust saturated. Back sore from hauling brick and timber. Settled into the seat, trying to find comfortable. Like a pile of twisted rebar, removed,cast into the corner of a lot, waiting to be hauled away, cut down maybe.Reused? Dusty blue jeans leave a print on the dark blue seat.Dust and mud and grime.In the cargo hold below, a small bag of clean church clothes. Fouled yellow bandana, covering a white spot, mid forehead, extending around.Heather sees me in the bandana and she calls me Gypsy now, has been doing it for some time. Buses are smooth these days, no rattle, no heavy diesel smoke.Quiet,like a magic carpet.Down the road, straight and true.Rock me to sleep if I could sleep. from one town to another, from green country to yellow country, both now fallow with November. Down the North Hill. What's that blacked out spot to the west? Nosehill, high and vacant,sages and tall grass, inhabited by Native spirits. Colonized all about, for grain and gas and oil.For real estate. Downtown buildings twinkle, beckon; corporate phallic symbols. Down across a tilted bridge.Lions on one end.Then left, easing into a downtown canyon. A few more blocks, then up a ramp, into a bus barn and out into bright neon lobby. A line of taxis below. Close to downtown, but not much around.A black snake of a river, running almost straight here. She waits in a drive-in pick up area,slim and lithe, grey eyes,long yellow hair.Into a warm and lingering embrace, the into a decrepit red car. Conscious of the need of water now,to wash me clean,to take away the day.A few blocks along a well traveled strip. Nightclubs.Still warm. Crowded with pedestrians.Police car flashing by. On to a dark street, one block off the main drag, behind a gas station. Hand in hand through a dark urban outback and into a building.

I can see the pictures.Hear it all too. A building starting to groan, under the weight of history, because the stripes on black flesh have not been atoned for, far away places have been colonized. Groaning and starting to tilt, their years complete, for better or worse. The silent sound of a world turning. Two soldiers outside,taking another step. Safe within, singing the anthem.Lost in studies or stories, writing of letters,not knowing of the last few hours or days of those being addressed. Scarred land and people.Water, washing clean.Two soldiers approach, another step. Shadows and tangled sheets,and a child says"I love you." Two soldiers drawing closer, removing hats and holding them,dignified in their hands. Once upon a time.It's strange for a story to end with Once upon a time.

May as well work here now.Busy streets. Rushing of in dark hours. Down on Ogden Road, the air smells of paper fiber and mash from the distillery from the treatment plant.And it all clings to a body, choking a bit at a time. Walk along the road.It's too far, and a silver van operates a photo radar in front of the metal re-cycler. Old ovens piled by the gates.A corrugated fence and a mountain of rust beyond. One machine lift, another devours.Dusty and windy in this town. Up along the tracks.It's shorter, but sometimes there are coyotes.Old boxcars. High yellow grass. Once a sirocco wind blew up on the walk home.Twelve degrees leaving the factory gate, twenty eight an hour later in a thunder of dust, eyes gritty,skin blasted. Out on McLeod Trail an olive army truck rolls by.Don't work at the mill now.Everyone hates each other, it's a wonder anything gets done. The tall foreman stares lifelessly at his peons, laughs and calls them racists.Have to leave.Going to strike him down with a board. The bottle depot oozes stink, every poison, every known drink that's unfit to drink.Pours out onto the floor.Bottles stacked in cardboard flats, soldierly, or tossed into canvas bags, like pits. Left the mill, working again ,a day later. C-Train home, conscious of booze stink,little sticky patches.Hands poisonous and black. Needing water to wash me clean.Passengers on the train, thinking me uncouth.Needing water.

A fire burned away, just across the river,the day after leaving the bottle depot. Talk of poor air quality.An exploding propane tank, a fireman being knocked down a latter. It the lawyers office, downtown. Everyone at the window, staring.Brown haze to the south, but how far? Better go look.Close to home...just across the stream.Multiple buildings. Cinder block apartment building.Springtime. Geese on the lawn, sometimes aggressive. Smoky inside, worse than the mill. Chopper in the sky, low. Talk about evacuation,maybe. River flowing by, Hell just beyond. Looks like a war zone. They parked the fire trucks along the road in the days just after the building tumbled, flying maple leafs and stars and stripes both.People honked, stopped to donate money to the families, right there by the roadside. Now the trucks are working, the neighborhood burning.Too close

Working.Food warehouse.Produce from Mexico. a scorpion scuttling across the floor.It came in with a load of watermelon. Stomp it flat, ruthless. Working,a linen factory. Shop steward says"I don't mind blacks...everyone should have a couple tied up in the back yard."He's unbearable, and he's a shop steward, ex-military.He lives to beat the system.Believes nothing good at all. Selling drugs on the side, locker covered in porn.Unbearable.

Talk radio.Iraq, Iran.Syria. Right wing all the time.Does any mercy exist in this town? "People are homeless because they choose to be. The Arabs hate us. They hate that we are free and successful.Why should peanuts be banned from a school just on account of one child? We have to close our borders. Don't work, you have no right to eat.Why shouldn't I jump queue to get the medical help I need, if I can afford to? And have you seen those palatial shelters? We need to stop making things so soft on people who won't work." Man walking down the alley.See him from the window.There is some kind of a thing growing on his cheek, blue and puffed up.Tumor maybe.Plastic garbage bag.Into the dumpster he goes.Looking for bottles and cans.Stomps the cans flat in the ice and show.Muffled...sounds like a gunshot in winter air.

Flood waters rising.Evacuate today, maybe in a few hours.Serene river's angry now. Apartment door left open again.Won't stop the water anyway.Might stop the crackheads if it was closed.Water creeping up.A bit muddy running from the taps.Won't wash me clean now.Cant drink it.Pitching sandbags end of the street.In the rain. The bridge just downstream is nearly awash.Waters rising.Then a cop comes by,with a city worker.Knocking on all the doors.Needles on the floor.One hour.Have to leave.Too much water.

Then up the North Hill.Number three bus.Sometimes late at night there are small race riots, really just fights on the bus.It's high up here.Not going to flood.Neighborhood looks hard and nasty. Three miles to work.Coyotes and skunks, and gopher holes.Jackrabbits. Rough cut here,for a city.Sidewalks just end sometimes. Walking underneath planes.Work is tolerable.Walking works out the kinked muscles, from pitching boxes and a flimsy bed. Hard to sleep, to get enough rest. Strong and able but feel unwell sometimes.Look up at Nose Hill. A few roads look like ruts. White piss stained porcelain.Beer cans.Stiff necked Mormons. Living behind a door, sleeping in cold winds of winter. Two buildings, two soldiers and the rest of the world.Approaching.Looking for water.