O that I were young again

A lament for the late great Nation of Canada, with apologies to W.B. Yeats

Alcohol ink image by Monika Ullmann

I have never written a ‘political’ poem before this one. It was inspired by this year’s Canada Day, a strangely muted affair. For example, on a building with about 200 balconies a grand total of two sported flags. Make of that what you will. I used to be a committed patriot, always praising the country I emigrated to at the tender age of almost thirteen. That ended three years ago and I may never again be ‘proud’ of being Canadian. A country full of people who prefer to put up and shut up is not for me. I would have made a better American because they tend to fight for their rights. Or they used to. Whatever is going on in the West, it seems to me like an existential and spiritual struggle whose outcome is highly uncertain. Meanwhile, I will carry on and speak up, even in poetry. In this spirit, here is the Canada Day poem.

How could I, that girl putting on

Her brave immigrant smile

Know what is coming

Struggling with English

I am without guile

My new country is

A many splendoured land

Vast and various

The very breath of liberty is

Blowing in the air

where us immigrants

learn to balance

Sweet hope with dark despair

But all is changed

Changed utterly

The kaleidoscope

has frozen

Into an inky hue

This place is no longer mine

Not a true North strong and free

I am a stranger from another time

But do not pity me

Canada is a place where

They are doing Faustian deals

Reciting remote isms

Why do They take up arms

Against us

And foster schisms

And maybe what They say

Of western culture’s end

is true

Or maybe it’s a lie

And we will bend

And rise again on cue

But O that I were young again

Innocent and free

When all things were possible

And we could clearly see

beyond alarms

A fine future beckoning

with her long & lovely arms