Les Rêves Canadiens

                NORTHERN HEART/TROPIC SKIES 

    This tropic land is beauty's own
    With tumbling mountains, boundless skies
    Here colours riot, birds enchant
    And prodigal summer never dies.

            (My country's moods take long to know
            Her mountains ,rivers, lakes and plains
            Give nothing easily for life
            And struggle yields but modest gains.)

    Here palm trees sway a light ballet
    And breezes whisper through the cane;
    The  sea  itself but waltzes in
    Then  lazily ebbs out again.

            (My country's sea snarls at her shores
            It bites and worries at the land.
            Her trees, deep-rooted, gnarled and tough
            With leafless boughs defiant stand.)

    This island drugs with sounds and scents
    Colours so rich the eye is lost
    Here life is offered as a gift
    And nature is a gracious host.

            (My country has its colours too ---
              Kaleidoscope of autumn leaves.
            And trees stark black against the snow,
            The sudden green which springtime weaves
            When all the naked branches show the miracle of life renewed.
            And brightly in the magic spring the sun  shines gold
             And life is good.

            My country can be grey and harsh
            We laugh, relieved , when springtime comes
            Glad to be free for short respite
            From knifing winds and winter nights
            And frozen skies and rationed sun.

    My country's beautiful  to seek.
    Rugged and harsh and stern and bleak.

    And mine.

Alma