My Grand Canal written and performed by Stan Skrzeszewski
6 July 2021; revised 17 October 2023
“No single project, before or since, has influenced the growth of St. Catharines more than the Welland Canal.” – St. Catharines: Canada’s Canal City, p. 37
Sitting on my deck
chocolate-coated donut
dipped in a double-double
rising to my waiting lips
bringing exquisite pleasure
something tender rising
from a great depth
an ancient visual memory
a simple recollection
in my inner mind
an illusion of looking out
over the Welland Canal
My, Grand Canal
canal of forbidden dreams
closing my lying eyes
sensing a gentle slope of grass
curving down to a rounded mound
leading to a wall of crushed rock
placed there by canal workers
Irish, Italians, Poles, Ukrainians
“canáil diabhal” / “maledetto canale”
“cholerny kanał” / “проклятий канал”
“Most of these men are foreigners because they do work Canadians and Englishmen will not do” – Land of Triumph and Tragedy, p. 578
all the hopeful workers
looking for a better life
if they can avoid death
working on this big ditch
flowing with grey-blue water
from the Greater Lakes
tainted by ships and smelts
industrial waste, city waste
dirty water wanting to be blue
waves reflected as sparkling sapphires
mined from the greatest of lakes
flowing to gulf of the saint
(Actually, who knows anything
about good St. Lawrence?
Not I, said the closed-eye dreamer)
bringing ships on the flowing water
I can see them now
an ocean goer and a laker
converging before me
I watch them narrowly pass
and then I remember
jumping into the canal
swimming before the prow
of that unfriendly ship
hoping I will make it
to that other side
(no, not that other side, not yet)
I swim even faster
than I ever did before
gulping down that life-giving water
(Yeh! Right!)
gaseous canal water
I pity the kids of today
never experienced such freedom
watching a ship pull into Lock 2
coming in from Lake Ontario
running down those wet cement steps
a hidden concrete, dripping tunnel
linking two escape routes
iron steps for a sailor to step ashore
me, looking down those same steps
watching the great ship rise
the water splashing
on my secret viewing window
running down the length of the tunnel
perverse rising water trying to trip me
frightening, but very much alive
reaching the next cement exit
water reaching the bottom step
running up those dripping stairs
beating the devil and the water
I pity the kids of today
reaching the safety above
watching the boat rise
seeing ropes being hurled
fastened to bollards
not a word to us, smiling
there were no fences then
we were free, life was free
riding our bikes home
riding on the edge of the abyss
without falling in
almost lost it there
near the end of life
going over the edge
into My Grand Canal
great day on the Welland Canal
I would never describe to my parents
a day I didn’t write about till 60 years later
a more fearful reckoning is coming
which I could have avoided
if, I had just fallen in
all those years ago
I long to be back at that canal
not today’s canal, yesterday’s canal
the canal of my youth
the twilight of my time
on the grand canal
on the waters of Lethe
I pity the kids of today
Stan Skrzeszewski (b. 1947) was raised in the Facer Street area of St. Catharines, and is a graduate of Brock University, a retired librarian, and a Facer Street poet and historian. Stan has nostalgic memories of his youth partly spent along the Ship Canal.
My Grand Canal was commissioned specifically for publication in Spirit of the Big Ditch. ©2021 by Stan Skrzeszewski.
My Grand Canal was first published in Spirit of the Big Ditch: The Story of the Welland Canals in Pictures, Poems and Songs. Compiled, edited and annotated by Robert Ratcliffe Taylor. St. Catharines: The Historical Society of St. Catharines, 2024
The Historical Society of St. Catharines 