"In a lifetime of deceit, love of the wilderness may have been his only genuine emotion."- Maclean's
abandoned by both parents —
no wonder you flew to another people for kinship.
Doesn't everyone dream at least once of being an Indian,
except for Indians? You began
with White Owl, moved on to Grey Owl,
an admission that nothing was quite so black/white.
Except that you dyed your hair,
hennaed your skin.
Which one was I, when you filled out
the "married" section of your army papers —
the "yes" or the "no", both scratched out?
A partner for each digit on your hand,
three who would bear you children
to abandon, just as you'd been left at age four.
Three daughters, and little Johnny,
who didn't know until he was nine
that the man he called "Archie Baloney"
was his father.
But the day you killed your last beaver
the mewling of her kits from the lodge
was more than the orphaned boy within
could take. You put down
your guns and snares, picked up
a pen.
may you escape eternal dam-nation.
4 comments:
"Doesn't everyone dream..." -- good line.
The first four or five lines of stanza 2 are also particularly good; they say a lot about his confused identity. (I found "you your" in line 5 a little awkward, though.)
Not sure about the pun at the end, though.
Are you developing a series on Grey Owl? I'm interested to see more.
I guess it could be my backup thesis project! :) I'm loathe to start anything new until I clear up my backlog though…we spent a lot of time in the PA parklands and have a lot of family up that way, so he's always been an interesting figure to me.
I put a line through some of the lines, incldg. the pun (I agree, it was terrible, heh) and added a new one to end on, something like that anyway. Good old Archie will be my fallback plan on slow poem days...
Thanks, Joanne!
You've written a great deal about the aboriginal and métis plights over the last couple years, and you're good at finding that voice (though, just slightly metis myself, how can I say absolutely, right?)
It all interests me very much though because my last three winters have involved countless hours of hearing and transcribing their stories, First Nation's people. I think I'm so full of it, I can't yet find my art in it, hearing the horrors and difficulties first hand.
Good work, Andie.
it would be interesting to feel the split within Grey Owl, the tension of truth/lie, past/present...
does this woman suspect?
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