All Over

On that first afternoon
it was all about noise:
sirens, the continual tuk-tuk-tuk
of helicopters, and the slow drone
of freight planes airlifting in supplies—noise
and the smell of smoke
hanging in a pall
across the inner suburbs
as the CTV building burned.

But in the days following
I recall the silence of a city
where daily business had all but ceased,
cars off the road, people staying home
or fled—over 70,000 now
the pundits claim, since February 22nd—
and at night the profound darkness
of a power blackout. On the evening
when the street lights blinked back on
we were out walking in the blue dusk:
the light overhead flick-flick-flickered –
and then the whole street
was bathed in a saffron haze,
illuminating the other side
of the road and a friend
outside the wreckage
that had once been her business
My friend’s father, helping her,
had just lost his home, and she,
looking dry-eyed at collapsed bricks,
said simply: “It’s over. It’s all over.”
.
© Helen Lowe, 2011

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