Blankets, umbrellas, six feet apart
dot the shore line, it is Canada day
red shirts with white maple
leaves cover little ones and big ones
testing the water, playing catch on the hillside
where blankets, picnic tables were covered
with families gathered and
charcoal smells waft to me, escaping
for a day from cities confinement
trips to the beach crowd my memory as
I swim, fighting the waves
in my now hometown,
the cows were milked, the car
packed and we all five kids
dressed in excitement piled
on top of each other hardly daring
to believe there would
be a parking space for us
those days there were no
restrictions on picnic table,
blanket spacing,
little if any
awareness of the stolen land
we were celebrating on or the waters
we were swimming in, no awareness either
of the town peoples who wished
we would not come and eat in their
parks or play on beaches
children playing, adults laughing
feeding children and themselves, drinking
from coolers and thermos,
pulling out more
and more food, packed, planned carefully
days earlier in the hopes that this outing
this day would offer comfort and joy in
the midst of so much uncertainty
distracting for a few hours from the
job loss, the illness, the work still waiting
the more things change
someone once said
the more they stay the same.
