Gargoyles Watch

This capital city, sitting within
a vast green, then-white valley,
two great rivers streaming
through and alongside where
lumber barons made their fortunes
yet bears scrutiny as the seat
of this country's government; a
metropolis wild with nature
pressing on every side; with
forests and farmland, museums
and institutions of government.

The curious, bold and stony
Gothic-inspired edifices, hand-wrought
and carved by master stone-masons
from the Mother country, stand
proudly aloof from their modern
counterparts. Tourists stream off
buses and make their way to the
Eternal Flame, curious to enter the
buildings where Parliament sits in
legislation of this proud land. They
are watched from above, though

unaware; the conceit of the carvers
in their visages duplicated, the
leering gargoyles, the symbols of this
nation carved from a hard-frontier,
from sea to sea to sea, displacing the
land's aboriginals, looting the
promised resources, all grand and
proud, assertive and shameful.
Damning the scaffold upon which
this nation has been contrived.