Beyond the Story

Expected to 

Embrace a Maple

By virtue of geography

And happenstance

Quite truthfully

One of my

Best childhood friends

Was an Oak tree

Oh Canada..

Why?

If someone else had taken me home

I'd be singing another song

I was born there 

So what?

You can't presume

I support "Canadian" values..

What is that anyway?

If if doesn't align

With what I believe

Then I don't care what flag it's wrapped in

Many would deny my Irish Ancestry

I get it, I wasn't steeped in the history

Did I ask to be sired

And then exiled, an ocean and continent away?

What does anyone know 

About what I experienced

Of my ancestry

While leagues away

Canada approx. 150 yrs old

Depending on the measure

Now comprised of the descendants of colonialists

And those they stole the land from

These settler spawn

Have the audacity 

To bleat 

If you come to this country live as we live

Many "Canadian" born descendants

Have lost the richness 

Of their own heritage

So intent are they at assuming the "New World" dictums 

Nothing is distinctly Canadian

The whole country comprised

Of people that have been coerced 

To homogenize their heritage

The original inhabitants

Were dealt a

Cultural, Spiritual and Identity

Holocaust

Something so much deeper

Than nationalism and ideology

Is lost 

When gone, is your story, of belonging

I mean no disrespect

To anyone's love

Of nation or culture

I am a stand for a deeper consciousness

Beyond the story

Of divisive

Ideologies and cultural narrative

That defy connection and unity

I will not judge, discriminate or kill anyone

 Based on nationalism

I would die

Rather than see, an aligned soul's voice, being repressed

R. O'Neill (Aug.05, 2017)