Robert Verdon, #315, Ageing Eco Warriors of Canadia

after all these years we’re still pretty young

no burnt or wasted lumber

oot here on the Canadian Shield

we live in a compact city built all of wood

including its skyscrapers

using only plantation trees

maudlin halls of decadence not wanted here

we’re a proud city of lumberjacks, they say

lumberjills too, eh?

working all night, sleeping all day

just doon there — you can tell by the glow

no, it’s not the midnight sun

that’s where we store the nuclear waste

to get the money to fund our icy solar farms

and frozen windmills

I’m Chub, this is Gaby

— eat your grub, Chub —

ah, gee, women

this is Native Canadian Joe Two Rivers who talks to bears in Ojibway

(and they talk back in Chinese)

he says he learnt their lingo on his many expeditions to the Pole

huntin’ the wild rice

while we reminisce with Uncle Raoul the comic French Canadian

in ’is cottaaage down bah ze rivehhh oo la la

 

Alouette, gentille alouette,
Alouette, je te plumerai.

 

we all go snowmobilin’ together every winter

spendin’ our loonies and guzzlin’ Canadian Club whisky

and recall our days as Junior Forest Rangers

one episode fabricatin’ a failed blimp in our Fort

until caught by Sgt Scott and told off

another time that bear got into Uncle Raoul’s cottage and we had to rescue him

— we never agree whether we escaped by birchbark canoe

or through Joe serenadin’ the grizzly, but who cares, we’re boiled to the eyes now,

it’s time we leapt on our horse and rode off in all directions

pursued by an idiotic moontie in red, eh!

tomorrow we’re takin’ our snowshoes doon to the fleshpots of

Winnipeg and London, Ontario

where we’ll no doot get into a fight with some Yanks

and me an’ Gaby at last’ll get hitched

hell, where’s she gone? but as you can see,

there’s nothin’ hokey aboot us, b’golly!,

we’re (as you’ve prob’ly guessed)

immortal.