Delight

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.