Stephen Dasko

For a Growing Skyline
By: Andrea Josic

Mississauga—meaning:
“The River of the North of Many Mouths”
A meeting point for the water and land
where the sailboats kiss along the midpoint of its shore
and dance in the hushed haze of the night sky
The people of this land lifelined across the rivers
to their kin and neighbours
and I like to think today’s skyline twinkles for all of us
nearly 1,000,000 shooting stars
every joyous face, like smiles marking pins on a world map
across our brief city limit
For decades, families have fed the ducks in Kariya Park
under summer’s promising breeze
or ice skated in endless circles in our city’s centre
under winter’s subdued skies
In each beautiful season
our community built stronger than the etching skyscrapers
Children’s wonder follow the pinball’s birthday party thwack
teenagers peruse the malls with hopeful $10 pockets
and parents teach their kids to bike ride behind grocery store plazas
I know we used to flow along gentle fields surrounding sparse high rises
and although a growing city brings shade in its afternoons
it never darkens its brightening future
Each corner of this city carries with it a unique melody
Dozens of brick villages led to this present union
all eager to move forward, clutching each other’s hearts
as we grow and develop as a city
Even amidst the busiest highways
where we hurry to reach our community
and the loudest skies
where we fly to bring our loved ones over
all so we can share our special places
with them

This Is It!

The cannon is muzzled, the planes are nested,

the navies anchored.

The silence breaks to a bird’s song, a child’s laugh.

The assembly line turns from the products of death

to the simple wares of Peace.

The bayonet is put away and the ploughshare lifted again.

 

This is the Peace we have bought

with blood and sweat and tears.

This is the liberty, this is the freedom,

This is the to-morrow of our yesterdays.

 

And this is the lesson learned:

That Freedom must be nurtured or it dies;

That a country’s hunger is a world’s shame;

That brotherhood is not bound by the barriers of tongue.

 

This is our post-war world,

This is the land, the life we’ve won,

The future is now begun.

 

August Sixteenth, Nineteen Fourty-Five

T.Eaton Co. Limited

 

This Poem was posted by Maureen O’Neill on Facebook, found in her Mother’s scrapbook.

T Eaton & Co Ltd. full page ad in the Toronto Star, 1945