Lakeside Contemplation
This familiar question,
this complex quandary,
we only seem to solve
via the dismissal
of that which we know
ourselves not to be.
We circle around it,
like an eddy in a canyon,
never really resolving
the issue to our own satisfaction.
Turning it over and over,
like a river smoothed rock,
warmed from the heat of
many hands and hearts.
The water knows what it is,
to be Canadian.
It is to be warm and pure,
quiet stillness with simply
unfathomable depths.
Or wild and forceful,
charging a path through
ancient earthworks,
earning respect with our resolve.
Those that underestimate
our quiet strength and cohesion,
fail to comprehend our unity
and power therein.
Like beads of water, we are all
different but inevitably the same,
and we draw our strength from the
ability to find our inner sameness
and harmonize our differences.
To be a Canadian, one must simply
emulate the water of our home
and native land, and rise above,
overcome any obstacle,
and prevail by enduring all that
arises with grace and integrity.
This ethos follows us, like a river
breaching its banks,
across time and space,
bonding us all regardless of place.