The Quarter of Combat
in the city of Paris.
Used to be the site of animal fights,
public hangings.
Nowadays, it’s a residential neighbourhood
and a landscaped, 61-acre park
featuring a lake, a waterfall,
and a miniature Roman temple.
To repeat our top military commanders,
there are no Canadian soldiers in Combat.
For all we know
they are 10,000 km away,
somewhere in northern Iraq.
(Editor’s note: poet Shai Ben-Shalom, an Israeli-born biologist, examines current events in the Blacklock’s tradition each and every Sunday)
