Vancouver Poem by Wendy Dobro

Green, rain-drenched trees summer knows not.
Not the piercing summers, anyway, of a toasty, southern shore.
Rich in humus and musty, rich tones that quench the nostrils with said odors.

Foggy, dewy banks soaked in watery salts; fallen precipitation from ocean-drawn clouds.
Cloudy days, hidden from sunshine enough to make uncomfortable
The less resistant, fragile variety not so well adapted to such a climate.

Moist greeneries and unfrozen parks, where dwells green, green grasses;
Grasses now lightly seasoned with fallen leaves, intermingled with tennis courts and lazy park benches.
Here resides a comfortable subculture of raincoat-dependent, dog-loving duos out for an afternoon jog.

Amongst, which, a tree grows, perhaps unnoticed by many.
Many of its limbs arching upward, immediately above water-soaked roots at its base;
Truly an unordinary tree that is growing in the most usual of terms—octopus-like.

In the city, the busy streets crawl with life, full of dirt and ideas.
Ideas not so clean as to overly disinfect a thoughtful mind.
A city so diverse in peoples that not one morality prevails.

Within which a delectable cuisine evolves, voluptuous tastes and dishes, many.
Many, busy people carrying out their day, much like any other place on earth;
Teetering on the edge between humanities’ beguiling culture and what the earth provides.

Water truly influences its ways and surrounds and expounds the city in every angle.
Angles that strike most evident where the coast protrudes, dividing green from blue.
This city is much a place on the edge of ocean and woods, as to be lost among them both.

She’s a Canadian venture in matter and experience, so close to the US, yet a world away.