Dear editor,
For love of Canada let’s sit upon the ground
And tell sad stories of the death of Parks
How some have been destroyed, some despoiled
By unseemly structures on the shores of misty lakes,
Where moose once nursed their young but come no more;
Where the loon’s cry no longer wavers o’er the land
And where the shy bittern calls in vain.
Where commerce builds a shrine of rusting steel
To unseen glaciers and usurps a one-time view.
Where are those who called to halt this desecration?
They have been shuffled out and replaced by those
Who question not but chart the insidious destruction
Of Canada’s iconic wild at the command
Of faceless bureaucrats who draw their bonuses, their pensions
And retire untroubled by their past decrees that have
Enriched commerce at the expense of these ‘protected’ lands.
But the inner voice is fey and in the dark night of old age
Will they hear one last fading echo of the loon
And shuffling of the great bear as it seeks peace
Where peace no longer reigns
In these great Parks?
- Jill Seaton
