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I love unfinished things,
the bookmark set between closed pages,
the field that waits for seed, Canada
is a place like that,
a history incomplete,
a traveller turning around and wondering
at the distance gone, the distance yet to go.
What was there, Canada?
What is ever there on a country’s road,
but times when we were glorious,
and times of things no one should have done?
Our anthem understands:
words of pride with notes of mourning,
and the music of resolve to finish
and turn towards the road ahead.
Here is a place to say, We go on,
not as before, and so keep faith with the best of what we are.
O, Canada, it is a complex love
that keeps us together,
and all the more true love for that.
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Happy Canada Day!
