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splinterswerve
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
splinterswerve.hotmail.com

by Wendi Seskus-James

I can see the Rocky Mountains from Calgary. The Rocky Mountains that people travel thousands of miles to see. Standing on a bluff above Calgary’s downtown, white peaks form a backdrop for the skyscrapers that try to match the magnificence of mountains. On five ordinary mornings a week, I see this sight and in that sombre zombie saunter to work they are part of my ordinary walk. And in that ordinary, yet momentous moment, I am reminded of life’s holy moments. And the ordinary is extraordinary.


Sky
Scra
pers
reac
h for
high
rise


when mountains’ background of escalation


On my walk, after descending the bluff, the earthflow of Centre Street Bridge opens up and presents its concrete tongue like a roar to swallow bus after bus, car after car, commuter after commuter, android after android...or am I just paranoid about how Calgary corporate centre eats up my precious time?


one fell gulp
commuters converge
at eight o’clock


At work, it is: silence but for clickclickclick. From my angle of repose, beyond the radiating box of words and numbers, I see grey Calgary. I am on the wrong side of the tracks of Calgary’s downtown. There’s a methadone clinic on the sixth floor to help those who have helped themselves to too much of a bad thing. Below my window, I see the bedrock of the city: half lives—black, hard, and glassy like anthracite and high above it all, the Calgary Tower stands husky and tall. There’s a good view of waydowntown from wayupthere

past corporate towers
past urban s p r a w l
the foothills r o l l
g r o w into
geological miracles of
s l o w
shifting
plates
friction breccia


like wo / man
molecular impact

“I sing the body electric”


I walk home past a man who sits like fossil on a blue milk crate in front of Bottlescrew Bill’s. He wears a baseball hat and has a ponytail that sticks through. I try not to make eye contact.
Everyday he asks: change?
I respond: sorry.
He says: God Bless.