Wandering Canadian

I look to the North where I can see
the colours of the Aurora Borealis
perfectly in my mind's eye

if I follow the North Star
long enough
I will arrive at Hudson Bay
where the Northern Lights run amok
where red and blue and violet
spill like wine from a drunk's decanter

I will follow the North Star
not as a runaway
but as a migratory bird

in the Mont aux Basques region of Quebec
my first ancestor in North America landed
he landed there in 1734

at a bend in the Ottawa River
my great-grandfather was blown to smithereens
he died there two centuries later
and was brought home in a box

somewhere in my genealogy
is a fur trapper who lied
with an aboriginal maiden

twice an ancestor named George Joanisse
married a woman
whose nom was Proulx

I am a métis,
as variable in colour
as the Aurora Borealis

I will return
to the land of my ancestors
where the restaurant hostess
pronounces my name correctly
when my table is ready

I will return
like the snow bird
like the dream of the Canadien errant

like a puck trapped
in the neutral zone
I will find the net

I will come back and blend
with the woods and the streams
the mountains and the rivers
the parks and the churches
streets and subways

I will stand in every doorway in Canada

I will lie down on the forest floor
like the maple leaf in autumn
I will grow in the fields
like the Madonna lily in spring

my blood will be potted in every garden

and when my time is come
I will die here
a Wandering Canadian
who has come home

this land knows me