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… one of those receptacles for old and curious things which seem to crouch in odd corners of this town and to hide their musty treasures from the public eye in jealousy and distrust. —Charles Dickens
Vancouver Special —Evelyn Lau Those summer days of searching
for a new house seemed an adventure—
I rode into each castle
on my father's shoulders like a small king,
pointing, nodding, the realtor fawning over me
as if I held the key to my family's future.
I beamed under the attention, busily bustled
from room to room stroking the walls,
the shag carpet, the realtor with his oily round face
rustling up a sweaty mint from his pocket for me.
I remember kitchens with carpeted floors, sundecks,
covered carports, avocado appliances everywhere.
Seventies' sunlight flooded in.
The realtor got down on one knee,
peered into my face as if I were an oracle,
repository of my parents' desires—
I was the firstborn, I sat at the head of the table
holding court, I held their happiness in my hands.
They were marvellous, these boxy modern houses
we might make our own—all except
the last one. Not this one, we can't buy this one, I cried, peering down
from the great height of my father's shoulders
at the unfinished sink, the hole in the counter.
My scratched legs bracketed his face—
his hands held me in place
steady as a surgeon's.
But who knew where it could lead, this ugly gape
scattered with sawdust, this empty well
into which I could fall forever. Please . . .
The adults laughed, signing documents
with the realtor's gold pen—
the sink would be ready
by the time we moved in.
Nothing could happen here
that wouldn't happen in any other house.
Autumn is over the long leaves that love us, And over the mice in barley sheaves; Yellow the leaves of the rowan above us, And yellow the wet wild-strawberry leaves.
The hour of the waning of love has beset us, And weary and worn are our sad souls now; Let us part, ere the season of passion forget us, With a kiss and a tear on thy drooping brow. —The Falling of the Leaves, W.B. Yeats
“I have no idea to this day what those two Italian ladies were singing about. Truth is, I don’t wanna know. I would like to think they were singing about something so beautiful it can’t be expressed in words and makes your heart ache because of it. I tell you those voices soared higher and farther than anybody in a gray place dares to dream. It was like some beautiful bird flapped into our drab little cage and made these walls dissolve away, and for the briefest of moments, every last man at Shawshank felt free.” —Red, The Shawshank Redemption
