Oh Canada, what a special experience to have time away from my life of frame drums and oracle cards, to be in your capital city, Ottawa, for your birthday on July 1st. Your city centre streets were for people only, everywhere dressed in red and white.
You thoughtfully offered sidewalk screens of your dignitaries and their appropriately red carpet, for those of us who just missed their passing by.
Free Canada flags were in every hatband and hand.
In a quintessentially Canadian gesture of kindness you even tried to air condition the whole hot day with great spinning mist machines in parks and on street corners.
And as the sky turned dark above Maman, by Louise Bourgeois, outside the National Gallery of Canada,
the music became turned up in the park near your Parliament buildings.
And then Oh Canada what a show you gave to the sky.
To those of us on the ground there were messages,
and music explosions to match the glittering night.
At one moment during the long process when I became a Canadian citizen, because I could not be "landless," I had to stand before the Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia and two red suited Mounties and say, "I throw myself on the mercy of the Queen."
I am so happy that you said "We accept you."
