Toronto

Sometimes, Toronto is in your face, loud and incoherent:

A man on the subway railing about Canada’s ignorance of Mother Nature, its subsequent impending doom. His improvised speech speckled with obscenities and flying spit.

A Gatorade bottle, yesterday’s paper, garbage bric-a-brac framed by wire mesh of a TTC fence.

Sidewalks outside the Catholic School at Bathurst and Bloor covered in dirty cigarette butts.




Sometimes, Toronto is soft and subtle, revealing hidden beauties:

Streetcar tracks glistening in the rain along Bathurst.

Old houses’ stained glass panes: swallows and peonies lit warmly from within.

University of Toronto footpath imprinted with ghosts of fallen leaves.

Streetlights at Queen and Spadina blinking rhythmically in thick night-time mist, comforting refrains: green, yellow, red. Green, yellow, red.

Green.

Yellow.

Red.