Since I'm already (recently anyway) on the subject of Canada, here's a poem I wrote a while back about my childhood there...
Back there, I walked barefoot through broken down barns
where moss grew in blankets across cracked cement floors.
I was told to wear shoes should rusty nails sprout
instead of muddy water between my toes,
but all I ever got was dirty.
I never cared much for shoes
and my feet will never fit into slender glass slippers now,
but any prince who hopes to win me
will not care for such trivialities.
You had to feel the earth under your feet
to keep your head out of the clouds that your heart reached for.
Back there, lucky horseshoes grew on toppled brick walls
and cinder blocks held secret treasures to humble shipwrecks.
Back there, the brightest colours I've ever seen
were lights that danced in the sky on a cold night.
I lay on the roof of a great hall and watched
as my heaven turned to stained glass.
Back there, all it took to be a hero
was to battle demons in my dreams
and rescue my mother from milk snakes,
even if I was the one who brought them in.
I built grand museums of mud
for the rocks I found on the roadside,
and fashioned wooden watchtowers and blanket forts
to frame the next adventure.
Back there, I tunneled through snowdrifts
until I had crystal palaces,
and cut pathways to other worlds
through tree stands and hedges.
Split trees and arched roots
were doorways to distant lands
that beckoned and drew me,
and I always went through.
All the ingredients I needed
for such flights of fancy;
were imagination, and room to wander.
Both I had plenty of, back there.
Back there, I walked barefoot through broken down barns
where moss grew in blankets across cracked cement floors.
I was told to wear shoes should rusty nails sprout
instead of muddy water between my toes,
but all I ever got was dirty.
I never cared much for shoes
and my feet will never fit into slender glass slippers now,
but any prince who hopes to win me
will not care for such trivialities.
You had to feel the earth under your feet
to keep your head out of the clouds that your heart reached for.
Back there, lucky horseshoes grew on toppled brick walls
and cinder blocks held secret treasures to humble shipwrecks.
Back there, the brightest colours I've ever seen
were lights that danced in the sky on a cold night.
I lay on the roof of a great hall and watched
as my heaven turned to stained glass.
Back there, all it took to be a hero
was to battle demons in my dreams
and rescue my mother from milk snakes,
even if I was the one who brought them in.
I built grand museums of mud
for the rocks I found on the roadside,
and fashioned wooden watchtowers and blanket forts
to frame the next adventure.
Back there, I tunneled through snowdrifts
until I had crystal palaces,
and cut pathways to other worlds
through tree stands and hedges.
Split trees and arched roots
were doorways to distant lands
that beckoned and drew me,
and I always went through.
All the ingredients I needed
for such flights of fancy;
were imagination, and room to wander.
Both I had plenty of, back there.
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