Back Lanes and Big Backyards
March 20 2008


Just who is scrutinizing whom
when I walk this way,
down back lanes in the old inner city?
Of prim brick facades
and 50’ lots,
crowded-up near tilted slabs of grey concrete sidewalk
where grass pokes through.
Where immigrant women
down on their knees
scrub immaculate front porches with bleach,
and hang pictures of Jesus on dead-bolt doors
— the saviour in a crown of thorns,
forgiving stooped old women
who have yet to sin.

It is a cool green oasis,
with big backyards
hidden from the street,
and old-country peasants
growing things
— fat tomatoes
coiling up stakes,
and smoke houses and fig trees and even grapes.
And excited kids
playing in the self-contained universe of childhood.

There are no back laneways anymore
in treeless tracts of suburban homes,
where tinted cars purr
into remote-controlled garages.
So it’s like going undercover
when I enter here,
a public right-of-way
into the soft underbelly of private space.
I feel vaguely ashamed,
an intruder, peering-in;
especially when someone’s gaze
turns coldly towards me.

This alley feels out of place
a strip of nature where the rest is paved;
the seed of wildness
that will quickly overtake the city
soon after we have abandoned it.
The ground is soft, uneven, overgrown,
2 tire-ruts unearthing rich brown soil.
Some grass is neatly cut
by neighbours who have slipped over the border,
taking possession
of this indeterminate terrain.
And some is left to grow
by owners who stay behind high wooden fences,
keeping them safe.

A barricade against the weeds,
and the broken furniture nobody needs,
and curious strangers like me
— hurrying through,
as unobtrusive as I can be.