A Dinner Prayer for Canadian Thanksgiving

Wrote this little poem a few years ago.  Now Canada is facing another federal election and it’s on a knife edge.  My least fave plausible outcome (Conservative majority) and most fave plausible outcome (Liberals depend on NDP and Greens to forge a government and some form of PR is demanded in return) are both on the table this thanksgiving.  Of course, if Trudeau had delivered the PR he promised 4 years ago, this election would be a lot more buoyant.

Over succulent turkey or maybe “tofurkey”

(When I stretch for “inclusive”, the menu gets murky)

Eschewing divisions of creed, caste, and race

Perhaps you could try this thing out for a grace…

A bucket of blessings both vague and specific

Rain down from Atlantic to seashores Pacific

Harvesting happiness, like some great hoover

From Whitehorse to Windsor, St Johns to Vancouver.

Canadians all, all at work play and rest

Be as proud and as bright as a Don Cherry vest.

Be gracious in triumph – upstanding in grief

And may Leaf fans retain their strange sense of belief.

Be buoyant, bewildered, bilingual and brave

And may CBC celebrate Morley and Dave.

“Chez nous” or “our place” or just “unsere heimat”

Everyone loves their peculiar climate –

Even snowdrifts and ice-storms and droughts and mosquitoes

Need toasting with whisky and wine and mojitos.

May concepts revive that cause neighbours to stare,

Such as patient diplomacy, decent healthcare,

Let sane ecosense reach a tipping point that would

Reassure Dave Suzuki and Margaret Atwood.

Such national virtues, we know they’re still there

Though threatened by smugness, conceit and despair

May they flourish, no matter how often they splinter –

Canadian kindnesses last through the winter.

May your snow words be stranger,  your senses be sharper

‘Cos in 2015, you got rid of Steve Harper.