Today, July 1, is Canada Day. I am a Canadian, and this is what is means to me.

Home

by M. Bijman

Where we come from there are
raindrops that instantly evaporate on hot tar
like a field of tiny smoking fires,
low-running, brownish rivers
filled with rusty sludge and simmering rocks,
muddy dams with chalky banks
and wormy, warmish, silty bottoms.
heat that hits you in the chest
and wipes its oven mitt paw over your face,
white skies, or palest blue
or yellow and boiling, like curry, from the dust.

We were born creatures of arid habits: -
the subconscious searching of the sky
for rain clouds,
the inborn waiting for the rain,
the constant sniffing for the ozone after thunder,
the habitual drawing towards water,
always looking for some dampness
in the cracked, jigsaw-puzzle earth.

Where we live now there's
Snow,
that goes away
but not far,
and always comes back,
Water,
that burbles and rushes
always somewhere close,
glistening underneath jungly things,
Green things,
the tree-green, frog-green, grass-green,
bird-green, moss-green of our replete dreams,
the green, wet, snowy, tree-y place
we call home.

Other poems about paintings, here.