I know where I am standing when I take the photo.

The corner of Thurlow and Robson Streets waiting for my daughter who has dashed into the Starbucks to use their washroom.

I know they won’t object. She’s pretty. Polite. Looks clean. Healthy. Not of the street.

I know the person lying in the alcove of a boarded up store front, their body huddled under blankets while a big gentle looking dog keeps watch lies beside them, rump tucked into the curve of their belly, eyes watching the passers-by, I know they wouldn’t receive the same treatment.

Our tolerance of our shared humanity who have lost their way increases as more and more people fall beneath the weight of this world.

And my heart aches.

I stand looking at the telephone pole littered with stapes, their emptiness evidence of the posters removed long ago. Amidst the staples, one torn corner of a page that was ripped too quickly from its perch remains, a bookmark to the past.

Devoid of messages of all the goings on in the community I wonder if this pole is a symbol of a new city ordinance forbidding posters stapled to telephone poles.

And I wonder where will the body under the blankets find a place that welcomes them in with consideration and compassion, so they too can relieve themselves far from prying eyes full of pity or condemnation.

And I wonder if my eyes showed compassion as I walked by. Did I hide my grief at witnessing the state of their life journey that has led them here, to a cold, hard pavement, while the world carries on, indifferent.

And I wonder, when will we stop building skyscrapers to symbolize our prosperity and progressive ways and start building better more compassionate pathways on the ground that will bring home those who are lost to the streets and keep others at home before they become lost?

__________________________

About the poem.

This morning, I was captivated by a line from poet and novelist Adrienne Rich: “I dreamed you were a poem, / I say, a poem I wanted to show someone.” The way her words weaved left an indelible mark on me. I felt the muse pushing me to pen a poem of my own. I thought it would be a love poem.

Instead, the muse lead me onto memory lane. Back to a street corner in Vancouver, where I’d stood waiting for my daughter and been fascinated by the telephone pole covered in staples. Hidden in that memory was a haunting tableau of countless individuals, their lives reduced to huddling on the sidewalks, as the world bustled by.

Penning this poem was my attempt to grapple with the profound sadness these scenes stir in me. Through words, I hope to lend a voice to those silent moments that speak so loudly of our shared human experience and the disparities we often choose not to see.

STAPLED 
by Louise Gallagher

I dreamed I wrote a poem
without words
and stapled it to a pole
wanting desperately to
fill the spaces
between the sounds of silence
of the song that dies with every note
left unsung
as we walk on by
the bodies 
lying huddled 
along the sidewalks
of the cities we built 
with ladders to the top 
only the privileged few
can climb.

I dreamed I wrote a poem
without words
and no one listened.