Guelph is a sepia tone song
that echoes in my heart
that echoes in my head
the place where God was Christ
clinging to the cross
and bleeding in my eyes
He lived on the highest hill
as place of pilgrimage
for five year old legs
earnest in desire to kneel and pray
lets offer pine boughs to his mother
her feet fragrant and beautiful
in cold cut marble

Guelph is summer in my heart
singing sunlight in my head
ripple-aired train tracks
oily empty cars for eager eyes
sewers for seeking the dark
in rubber boots with ghosts
crazy roof-bound children
laughing leaping into Speed River
to hide beneath mossy bridges
while the cars pass over our heads
careless and carefree for a time

Guelph is sweat and shaking sadness
of frightened young hands
held together for fearless first time
hands that crept in basement’s dark
fumbling desperate beneath shirts
seeking softer, warmer places
for healing from the corrosive
while wood panel walls looked on
at a new sacrament uncovered
too much power for this fragile flesh

Guelph is Ireland in my heart
Guelph is Italy in my head
it is a never ending ache
of drunken violent languishing love
buried in Catholic conscience
on green hills covered in stones
it is a scream in succumbing silence
of lessons that should never be learned

Guelph is the lost place in my heart
Guelph is the loneliness left behind
in favour of far-flung places
with less flavor than her siren streets
she is holy Ithaca on far
that cannot be found again
unless like lost Ulysses
i cast my aged body on the sea
to sail and survive pointless peril
and find her gone, gone, gone

Guelph is head and heart
Guelph is homecoming on the
ever dark and distant horizon
she knows my sordid secrets
keeps them buried in limestone
beneath strange faces
a vault with just enough room
for what’s left one day