Naming The Streets Of Calgary Poem by Gordon R Menzies

I follow her on a Monday meandering
through the Cold Garden under blue sky
damning and cursing the grid work of 1904
watching the numbers fall from street signs
clattering over the curbs as she passes
streets and avenues dropping numbers
and demanding words of remembrance
she almost prances as she speaks them
Brown Bottle Lane, Riverwalk Avenue
Prairie Wind and Magpie Streets
Dancing Horse Drive, she touches
street signs as she passes and I
follow, writing them all down, some
just rediscovered and given life again
as she peels up the asphalt, touches earth
her fingers finding letters ‘midst the stone
her lips finding adjectives, in shadow
and river spray wanderings, knowing
we cannot sink our roots into numbers
only names can make these places ours
in Gaelic and Siksika and English
Alainn Street, Ki'somma Avenue
our pathways come to life and rise

I determine not to kiss her on 6th Avenue,
but take her by the slender waist
on Winter Rose Lane, and the moment,
is planted like a flag in the pressing of lips,
and fixed as a star among our names