A Room of My Own: O Canada Tanka

written on Canada Day for new Canadians

breezy sunlight
floods the ceremony room
each new citizen
singing O Canada
in a different tone

Note: The following is a prequel to the tanka above:

for naturalized Canadians

a giant Maple Leaf
in the ceremony
I answer
to my English name
with a twinge of sadness

Atlas Poetica, 21, 2015

Chen-ou Liu