O Canada Girls

If I did not dream who would you be

And if you did not dream who would I be

Yes, there is gold in this mountain

This they cannot mine

Tell me who they need it for

I'll tell you now, they need me more

O Canada girls

I have seen you in your sweaters

In the late-night sun at Winnipeg

Growing up with friends and so unhurried

With your secrets I believe

Kept in the longer sleeve

Oh girls

Highways seen from hotel windows

Pumping highway blood

If I say they run from fear

Are things much different standing here

O Canada girls

When I saw the geese flying north

I remembered the friends of my vision

And a sense I had of other wings

Like faith, light threaded through a psalm

Like our boys fleeing Vietnam

Oh girls

If I drove up eighty-seven

Up past Montreal

Following the bluest veins

Following through icy rains

Would I emerge in the present

And know just where to begin

I'm so sick of forgetting myself to remember who I am

And you say yeah, but why so cold, and so Canadian

I guess it's got to feel like some exodus

And if I succeed, well there will be more of us

And if I don't well I don't really know

Girls

Who have found our unsung nation

Where we left so much land to itself

That everyone had her own mountain

Well if you think of this girl and the dreams that made her

Write your secrets on hornet nest paper

And blow it high across the border

'Cause if you did not dream, who would I be

And if I did not dream who would you be