Lakeside Contemplation by Jessica Pumphrey

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.

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