Here are three poems about Canada, a country in which I have spent some time and for which I have great admiration. The first is about the “northness” of Canada and how that contrasts with the passionate nature that we, who live in the north, imagine we see in warmer climes. Canada stands for courtesy, kindness, restraint—all the things we really need in a world of disharmony and strife.

northland

North is a way of looking

At a world in which south

Is synonymous with an altogether

Different slant to the sun

And a mood music that

Observes an unrelated key;

There is no necessary connection

Between courtesy and latitude,

Although sometimes, as in this case,

It seems to occur—the compass

By which north is identified

Is in this case marked kindness and modesty:

Small words for a large country

And a whole way

Of looking at the world.