The Distance Between

Glen Road Foot Bridge, Riverdale, Toronto, Silverpoint drawing, 1984 

A foot bridge at Shelbourne and Bloor, Riverdale. 
He remembered preparing the paper for the precious metal point.
An artist friend obsessed with the drawings of the old masters, had resurrected an old formula.
"Use it - you'll know what it was like... you know, to do what they did."
    
It would eventually oxidize.

 So be it, 
didn't everything? 

First an earthy green, then slowly and inexorably, into a Renaissance nut brown.
The kind people associated with old master reproductions.
But how many really had the chance to hold a real one in their hands, in a museum cabinet drawing room ...

He didn't think so.

In Toronto, bridges were a fact of life.
He always felt a little unsure when he approached this one,
on Glen Road,
especially when another person stepped onto the bridge threshold at the same time,
from the other side.

He could see him.
Describe him.
Get a superficial sense of who he was...
from a distance.

That unequivocal space in between planting the seeds of so much conjecture.

But that was all.
Everything else was geography, seasonal gatherings, and the memory of family ritual. 

And still, he knew he was his brother.


Steven Rhude, Wolfville, NS