Travelling Up From Great Falls,
Montana Into Alberta, We Passed
Through Small Canadian Farming Communities:
Railway Junctions With Clusters Of Wheat Silos
Stood Stark Against Large Skies, Their Weathered
Wood In Pastel Shades Of Perfected Decay.
Then Onto Calgary, Stampeding Into The Future
With A Brash And Confident Down Town Eruption
Rising From The Canadian Plains. Late In The
Evening The Wind Hurled Through Glass Canyons
As We Walked Its Ghostless Streets, Emptied
Of Day-Life. This Image Stayed With Me As We
Drove On Through Banff In The Rockies Heading
Towards The Frazer Valley. The Immense
Architecture In Calgary Made A Curious
Juxtaposition With The Grandeur Of The Rockies.
Perhaps Both Could Be Celebrated.
Calgary
Prodigious Buildings
Shapes Swallowing Space And Light
Filling The Billowing Clouds
With Great Crowds Of Stone And Glass
Built To Outlast
The Fleeting Natural Skyscape.
Monumental Architectural Statements
Sure Strokes.
Form Without Worship.
Man Made For Man:
A Functional Alter Of Fearless Engineering,
Thrust Upward,
In A Practical, Unsought Beauty.
The Rockies
Skies Ride A Mile High
Over Huge Weather Making Mountains.
White Clouds Mirror Summer Snows
Hiding In Ancient Glacial Corries.
The Canadian Pacific Railway
Competes With Racing White Water
Platting Their Way To The Frazer Valley.
Tracks Dive Through Human Hewn Caves,
The River Rushes Round
And Hurtles On.
Above Them,
Cedar Hands Held Heavenward
Lift Monolithic Rocky Towers,
Their Golden Grey Sandy Sunlit Prize