Nova Scotians All
by Penelope Tippen
Dedicated to the 229 people who
died on 3 September 1998 when a
SwissAir jet crashed into the seas
near Halifax, Nova Scotia.
We share our borders
and winged grief takes flight.
Two hundred souls now destined
to a common flag
where cultures and the barriers
they erect
and languages that carve
the earthscape into disconnected
fiefdoms
fuse,
become a harmony of death,
a legacy of mournful choruses
united in dark requiem.
Anthems of the stars and stripes,
the maple leaf and cross
are galvanized in waves that
pound the shoals
ringing in foreverness.
Nova Scotians all,
eternally to hail the drone
of bagpipes whistling through
the land that binds them.
The lighthouse, now an icon that
will guide the sorrows,
as currents sweep them out to sea
where we will meet them--once again--
tomorrow.
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