O Canada Girls

2, and And 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 87 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? Well, I guess it's gotta 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?