Montreal

dozzina (double sestina)

image source https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:ArrondissementsQuartiersMontreal.svg

Is Montreal an island? Truly? Well, 
It is, I guess, unless so many bridges 
Amount to being all too connected 
To the mainland, not to mention ice 
In winter that forms a solid surface to skate 
Across—so, what then? How to define 
The island concept? A solid chunk of land 
Surrounded by liquid water? Even if 
The stream is only centimeters wide? 
Where do we draw the line? Perhaps a spectrum
Of islandness is the answer: the wider the water 
That separates the isle from land, the more 

Definitively we can say, more 
So than in other cases, it is well
And good to call this chunk of dirt, so wide 
And such and such long, encircled by water,
An island. When that water turns to ice,
As it often does for a month or two, the land
Becomes contiguous beyond what bridges
Achieve year-round, with a solidness as if
No difference exists between what is connected
To itself and itself itself, beyond the spectrum
Of what we call an “island” when we define
The thing with strictness like the blade of a skate.

We can ignore some questions geographers skate
Around, like when is an island so big it’s more
Appropriately labeled a “continent” when we define
The smallest continent as Australia (where ice
Is rarely seen). But what about New Zealand?
Let’s not fall down into that wishing well,
At least not till the two are joined by bridges
Or oceans rise to the point we’re all connected
And no dry ground exists, only a spectrum
Of floating things bumping or giving wide
Berth. That’s where we’re headed folks: a Water
World that raises the question of what if.

But leaving that, let us consider if
You’d never found this glistening river to skate
Or never boarded that first flight to land
On this enchanted island, to redefine
The meaning of a glass of melting ice, 
Or contemplate the emptiness of what more
There is across the fullness of the spectrum 
Of what it is. So choose one of these bridges
And realize reality is interconnected
As an archipelago in water
Drawn from the most mysterious well,
Unfathomably beautiful and deep and wide.

I’ll try to count these words across the wide
White page, the words themselves like islands, if
An island of ink on a white sea define
Itself as such and castaways the spectrum
Span. But all manner of thing shall be well,
Said Julian, which was her way of building bridges
From now to kingdom come when every land
Will glide toward nirvana like melting ice
(Alluding to Frost, who like Glassco disconnected
And reconnected the circuitry of poetry for more
Humility, the ice for the roller skate)
While Isle Montreal’s embraced by water.

And so we come to my Montreal Water
So swiftly streaming to the ocean wide
Disrupted here by what we might define 
As Archipel d'Hochelaga’s spectrum
Of islands and possible islands in the ice
Of winter and the depths of what the bridges
Cross in summer, this beautiful foreign land
I never knew till I met you so well
That we could not give up desire for more
And couldn’t stand to burn the bridge of if
We’d built from boards no longer used to skate,
Instead to fly and fly and be connected.
 
So, I find myself in Montreal, connected
To a native of this place of flowing water,
Of islands in the stream surrounded by farmland
And woods and a rugged landscape which, if
You venture out from it, you’ll find there’s more
French speaking. And I imagine they speak it well.
I find it difficult, but words are bridges
And all you have to do is cross the spectrum
Of self-doubt, just like learning to skate,
And cease to worry too much or precisely define
What you’re trying to express, but open wide
The mouth of your mind and let your brain’s ice melt.

Is my beloved an Island? Her heat can melt
The offshore icebergs drifting and connected
And sometimes sinking ships on the ocean wide
Of my meandering soul where I define
Myself as one who formerly could skate
Up walls and fly across a heavenly spectrum;
An island of paradise where all is well
For castaways awash with grief to land,
Escaping submarines imploding more
Due to the weight of greed than water
Depresses engineering past the question if
A billion dollars could build a thousand bridges.

My love possesses one of many bridges
And I the only alchemist to melt
The gold to pave the way across, to skate
My way on wheels, each one beneath its well,
Avoiding slalom cones and laws connected
To surveillance cameras that catch you if
You turn on red like drivers on the mainland.
Every legal system is a spectrum
Of just and unjust laws; and far and wide
The thirst for justice drinks small drops of water;
But love can suffer losing more and more
Till it receives what justice can’t define.

The island of Montreal we could define
As a patchwork quilt of neighborhoods sans bridges
But rather crammed together, narrow, wide,
A mishmash of French and English words connected
By love and hatred, songs of Leonard if
You take his hallelujah, listen well,
Add sacred cursing unique to that strange land,
And then consider the many places to skate
In winter, rinks and ribbons across a spectrum
Of yards and parks, frozen for to melt
In springtime—if it ever comes—and water
Flows with mud in rivulets that more

Resemble a crutch than “why not ask for more” 
Despite miraculous crutches that define
Saint Joseph’s Oratory on display as if
The reappearance of the sun could melt
All doubts about how brutal winter connected
Everyone in solidarity to skate
Hand in hand across the river wide
And keep on skating south across a spectrum
Of winter weather beyond the broken bridges
And dashed invalid dreams of getting well
With magic spells and droplets of holy water
And palm-tree visions from the holy land.

And so we come to the heart of this island land,
The royal mountain whose steps I’ve ascended more,
It seems, than any other steps, to define
And assess the city from above, connected 
As it all is by its name across the wide
Expanse of royalty above the water
Line of the Saint Lawrence which I’d like to skate
Some lazy winter day with mon amour if
The fates allow but now only wish to melt
With her into this place with all its bridges
Pointing in every direction, a stunning spectrum
Of possibility and well, well, well.

For now life’s bridges serve their purpose well
To carry us if needed across the wide
Expanse of land that is the world and melt
The distance disconnected lives define
As separate, to flow like water, to swiftly skate
In air for more of Montreal’s full spectrum.

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