I wore my bright red corduroy coat today. Beside the stylish subway-station buttons I wear (Dundas, Osgoode), I pinned a red poppy, which almost matches the coat exactly.
As it turned out, this morning I didn't have much time to play at Pape Station. I planned to be out for a couple of hours, but I hadn't counted on the jackhammering. The woman at the Gateway stand tells me that each day it's been pretty constant between 8:00 a.m. and noon, so I counted myself lucky to play uninterrupted for 45 minutes.
During that time, I had conversations with two friends I hadn't seen in several months (now I don't worry too much about taking the time out from singing, because these chance meetings are so valuable) and I gave out a business card to a new friend who enjoyed my music. He stopped to listen while I was playing "Could it Have Been The War", a song I often play around Remembrance Day.
Shortly after that, a decorated veteran came through the station and I tried to signal my respect for him while continuing to sing. In return, he gave me a jaunty little salute, his way of returning my smile. I was glad to be wearing my poppy.
But on the way home, I noticed that despite my best efforts at carefully pinning it on, it had fallen off, somewhere on the road between the Pape bus and my street.
It occurred to me that they may be designed that way on purpose: so that people come upon them by accident and notice the fact that they've fallen, or (a more cynical view) so that people like me must make another donation in order to get a new one.
It seems to me appropriate that we can't hold onto the poppies...that we can't keep them pinned down neatly to our coat or our consciousness...in a moment of inattention, another is gone.
And then we pause to pick another one up.
No comments:
Post a Comment