The Story of This Land - Told by One In Moccasins

We welcomed you into our circles 

You married us for your gain 

We taught you our ways and our customs 

You deemed savage to your peril and shame 

We had yellow knives and hunted bison 

On the Manitoba plain 

The Songhees and the tundra 

Were our ancestors' domains 

We drank from the Okanagan, 

Fished Chinook off Ucluelet's shore 

These waters were places of plenty 

But not so anymore  

We traversed Malahat and Tsawwassen 

Without sirens or delays 

We paddled our own canoes 

Before the white man came  

You gifted us with blankets 

Laden with infection - 

The red death, red plague - 

We graciously accepted  

You tried to take our culture 

And force your 'civilized' ways 

We were close-knit like Cowichans 

Now unravelling and frayed 

We wanted relationship  

You turned the other way         

The earth cries out for justice 

For all the needless graves  

---

Inspired by A Fair Country: Telling Truths About Canada by John Ralston Saul, and what I learned through participating in The Blanket Exercise, a teaching tool about the relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people.

The Piano

The dark upright stood, 

Relatively unnoticed,  

Next to the warm TV; 

Black and white portraits  
Were arranged on top 

Around my father's trophies  

For curling and snooker 

And a Fiddler on the Roof music box; 

The wooden mammoth featured  

In photos for generations, 

Silent in the background, 

Like an 88-year-old in the geriatric wing 

Whose teeth were rarely seen; 

My mother's standard excuse for not 

Fingering its keys more frequently 

Was her daily practice  

Of cooking and cleaning 

From sunrise to sunset; 

It was something to note 

When songs of sunshine and snow 

Drifted through the house; 

When the great grandmother's heart  

Stopped, never to beat again 

There was no discord 

Over which sibling would inherit it; 

Miracle of miracles  

It was mine 

But first the cumbersome lumber 

Was placed in storage 

And then relinquished to a church 

Before, by fate, 

It was finally redeemed 

And I was majorly relieved; 

The centenarian and I  

Are learning new tricks 

After all this time 

I only wish I were a rich gal 

All day long I'd be playing, 

If I were a wealthy gal 

Salmon Feast

The beautiful sparkling waters,
and swift-flowing rivers
in and around Turtle Island -
Algonquin, Saskatchewan,
Skeena, Kumsheen -
were a place of plenty;
fish practically leapt
into our cedar-carved canoes;
eagles feasted on Chinook,
grizzlies grabbed their share -
such bounty from our Creator;
we shared a common, copper bowl;
the land
once warmed by the sun
remembers long ago
before the cities' shadows fell
and Raven changed his tune