Absence in Numbers

Friday, 22nd May. ...the men are much crowded, but the Officers have good quarters, the boat being considerably larger than the old Northcote, although of similar type.

Post-battle pleasure cruise for
soldiers, down the North
Saskatchewan river. Amusing
to think this vessel contains
the largest population for miles
around: a portable town. Floating
ant colony. Wish I was instead
a spider with my own web,
space to spread, spin, scuttle.

Rain, sun, wind - days
stretch and unravel like
a poorly knit sweater. Eternity
is a boat ride on an endless
river. We try to forget
why we came here.
Oh, what I'd give
for clean clothes, uniform
or otherwise.
***
Took me four days
to walk home, always listening
for gunfire or the heedless noise

of soldiers who've won by sheer
number; thought for sure I'd find
maman and the girls.

This, this was not
what I expected. If not
for the tree, the initials still carved

there - how could a life, a house,
a barn, a family
disappear in smoke?

Even the henhouse,
the chickens
were gone

as if our homestead
was sugar dissolved in tea
melting into air and earth

nothing left but fine black residue at the base
the very ashes trying to leave
on a north wind

I kept vigil three
days and three nights; there was
no resurrection.

Now I walk west,
because the endless lines of soldiers
came from the east.

I have 14 years. I fought for my family, my life, my future
and Dumont. Then surrendered my rifle
to the priest.

Adrift

Friday, 22nd May Boarded the steamer "North West" this morning for Battleford, and hope to make it in three days.

More boating
in this landlocked flatscape
than a summer within sight
of the Great Lakes. The riverwater
almost as smooth, mundane
as horizon and domed sky. Grasses
ripple in wind, vast emerald ocean: today
a galloping beaver dashed ungainly
through snapping undergrowth,
dove sleekly silently as a seal
into the water, almost without
ripple. I did not see him
surface.
Enviable his escape, his shape - swift most singular
purpose.
***
I would like to see
the river one more time
the stars at night
my mother's hands
my father's eyes

I would like to know
who I was going to be partnered
with, what it is like
to bear a child.

Instead, these twelve
winters are all
I will ever have. I saw
only three moon-times, never knew
the touch
of a lover.

What entered me
was a bullet, sharp and piercing.
I bled. My hand trying to hold in the red red
river that flowed. Here I lie.
I'm dead.

Of fighting and war and hate and violence
I was completely blameless.
I'm the Dakota girl that died at Batoche:
forgotten, cold.
Nameless.

Worry


I step off every curb assuming
the car won’t brake for the stop sign

I imagine the nurse rifling through my pockets
for a phone number, wonder if you’ll be home
when she calls, if you’ll crumple

I think about all the things
I haven’t written down

How lucky you are to trust
that I’ll always make it home

To believe the plane will be righted
before impact, that an absent wallet
was tucked away for safe-keeping by a stranger

But that just means I have to fret double-time,
carry the gut-twisting weight for both of us

how to do a hit and run

if physics has taught you anything, it's this. you are the air around bruised fruit, the dome of age that surrounds the body. you are here to speed things up. to sex things up. remember, there are two ways the body can buckle. you allow then you enable. see how the automobile was invented for luxury? see how we all sing zoom zoom? if you watch enough tv you will know a thing or two about the victims eyes. so go ahead, make the first move. become the answer. because knowledge is stored in the body. because secrets can spill like blood. because the crime scene was already there. because our fathers paved the way. because this is the age of collisions. because this is the age of slow-mo. because the body is slippery and impossible to identify. because personal property is a myth. because it's always easier to drive. because no one returns phone calls anymore so why leave a note. because isn't this what we all want? the human and the machine...to see just how far we can go...

the angel's share

Slainte mhath
North Atlantic peat-men
you cut fat cubes of smoke and heat,
trickled clear the water rite
for tongue, lips, throat, the belly,
re-created celebration, consolation, wisdom
that swallowed smooth all the way down,
was done, dusted, distilled
decades, hell, centuries,
before this war was invented.

Slainte mhath Orion
light Cubans,
break chocolate
tart and black as Kuchi tents
pegged by the Arghandab river,
palm almonds, freshly shaken/cured in Dande,
raisins made in grape huts used for grapes
not ordinance, not hiding nor attack;
cut wedges of pomegranate fat, red,
let them bleed on our fingertips
the colour of all our dead,
the colour of the hunter’s dress uniform pressed
for Brigade Officers’ Dinners in the mess,
that we should savour each glossy seed
so damned sour, so damned sweet;

Slainte mhath
say it aloud for the boy we witnessed,
though words are so God damned meaningless,
come far too late to do any good
for the boy carried, then shouldered
all the way home strapped
carefully, the tender side of war,
the one who’ll never know an afternoons’ best whisky;
pour for him, for ever here, now,
before the wind is up, the lanyards on the flag poles click,
and it’s too late for sails across this Great blue Lake,
say it before this moment passes as his cortège passes
beneath overpasses, down Canada’s own ring road,
a threnody of Harleys singing a lament
as the piper pipes his Flowers of the Forest
on hot black tarmac, and the turbines click click,
and a thousand people pull over to the side of the road,
go silent;

Slainte mhath
to the worn grass you stand on
within the starburst of the old bastion,
the Martello towers squat and sturdy,
such quaint limestone, so comfey in their history,
your shoes are buffed so black and shiny
we see reflections of ourselves
as you pour good whisky gone to ground,
and you are tired, have seen too much,
and I am so tired, have heard too much,
as we offer just for him
the angels’ share.

I drove my son to the edge of town

I drove my son to the edge of town,
handed him his things, some cash.
Even a mother's love breaks down.

When he was a baby I felt that I could drown
in love so deep, so vast.
I drove my son to the edge of town.

But now the sea of love has dried and run aground.
Our children run so far, so fast,
even a mother's love breaks down.

I sped away, and heard the broken sound -
my heart, its shattered clasp.
I drove my son to the edge of town.

I left him by the freeway, not a soul around.
I left without a backward glance.
Even a mother's love breaks down.

I keep his picture on the mantelpiece. I've found
it helps appease the worried past.
I drove my son to the edge of town.

Blow by blow the bloody cord unwound,
it left a tiny little gash.
I drove my son to the edge of town.
Even a mother's love breaks down.

Pax Aeterna

Wednesday, 20th May Chief Beardy visited camp today and swore eternal peace with the whites, which was the immediate result I suppose of the victory at Batoche.

He was hard
to read, his eyes
gave away nothing. He is
rumoured

to be bold and fierce,
his name from the scattered
grey beard on his chin.

From the frightened way he spoke
it appeared there was little enough
of a man, within.

Eternal peace, easier
to swear
alive
than dead.

They crouched next to the tent
- one private joked they were
waiting
to be fed.
***
Beardy and Okemasis
went to Middleton today.
The Redcoat General
Said had they not come, he would have
Burnt their reserves away:

as it was, he shamed
and scolded them
like an old woman.

Forbade our peoples any gifts of food or meat,
Tea, flour, or the stores promised in times of
Famine and pestilence. We hunkered down on the ground
at their feet.

I acted as interpreter, hard
to walk between these two worlds. Words
and meanings, slippery devils. Like catching
fish from a river with one hand.

They stared and joked
among themselves. Looked
down upon us.

Okemasis said he was trying only
to make a living for his wife and children.

Beardy said his men were frightened for
their lives and he prayed them to keep still:
towards the whites, he wished no man ill.

The clergymen with us
pled for stores for our little ones,
our wives and Elders. Middleton
said Beardy was lucky not to be hung
by his thumbs.

Beardy
Pledged
Eternal peace and left
Empty-handed.
Threatened loss of leadership and land, then stripped
Of his medals - as
The General
Demanded.

Sweet nothing


That time you were in the hospital
coiled in a nautilus of pain,
my palm too warm for your forehead
(before the morphine shot
you through with magical sleep),
I wanted, for the first time, to call you
darling sweetheart honey dear

But they didn’t sit comfortably
on my tongue, the situation too dire
for twirling cliches in front of you
And a decade in too late to christen you
with some pastry-sweet endearment

So I sat on the cracked lip of a plastic chair –
even my weight on the mattress hurt you –
and repeated your name,
oh your name oh your name oh your name
investing it with more tenderness
than it had ever held

7 a.m. to Montréal

Suits rustle into seats. Hands release seat-back trays,

pull out papers, touch cellphone keys.

Hi, it's me. Yeah, I'm on the train.

Laptop screens wake to white and blue,

fingers feel their way across keyboards.

Eyes turn aisleward to signal

a want of coffee. Hands know how

to hold the heavy liquid in white foam cups

without squeezing, to pass cup to lips

while scanning lines of type.

The last sip. Conductor calls

Dorval. Five minutes to Montréal.

Laptops click shut, coats rustle

and rear balconies of row houses

attract fleeting attention— a signal,

window blinds a flag code:

gather your things, get up,

watch. Be ready.

So fast

Oops,
slipping away
is May...

Perhaps it was overly ambitious to want to participate since # of days away from home during May = 16 1/2... I do have some snippets that have arisen during my travels that I will attempt to translate to the screen in the remaining days of May...

But it's great to see so much participation and poems being created! Kudos to you all!

(eleven)

(Note: poems six, nine & ten are not visible due to severe cloud cover.)


Behind the clouds
....................it hid
day
after day.

Unexpected it arrived
through French doors
......mid-day light
spilling hope
on the cherry wood slats --
flooded them, really.

He smiled for
the first time in eleven days.

Mr. Statue of Liberty Addresses the Nation

It was a shotgun wedding—
the guards chased me out of her when they heard me read religious literature aloud.
Most nights I had to be content with a 12-inch model,
the details imperfect, the surface too new.
Nights too hot for compromise
or too cold for deprivation,
I snuck out to see the lights shimmer on the water,
imaged her crown like a superhero might at the climax of the movie,
as the scene of a pitched battle,
as the brush with quick death, and then out again
on the other side.
Eventually even the plainclothes officers grew to like me--
the ones really looking for the nuts—
for I am charming, and wear my allegiance on my chest.

Comparative reading


Too serious for the frivolity, the gawdy posters
of the children’s department, you spent hours alone
with the comfort-smell of dust and dry paper,
the wood polish and antique waft
of the reference section of Cornish Library
You carefully turned huge atlas pages,
traced coastlines with your small fingers
Checked out only bird guides, returned them
when you’d memorized wingspans and breeding ranges

Meanwhile, in the bright air conditioning of the Westwood branch,
I bee-lined for the candy-covered laughs
of Bruno and Boots, Judy Blume,
searched the shelves for any crisp new book
(the thrill to being first, ever, to peel open the cover,
wolf down those pristine words)
I hefted stacks of paperbacks on the counter
and waited for a librarian, round or thin, to nod her approval

You chose your own adventure from the saffron frames
of National Geographic – the more remote the better –
and I watched for the latest issue of Owl,
which my Mom would prop in the front window,
so I could see it as I rounded the corner home for lunch

Your family had Collier’s Encycolpedia and when I tell you
we had World Book I hear the old jealousy in your voice,
know how you yearned for the luscious colour plates,
the strata of clear plastic that built the shocking entry for Human Body

But we were both drawn to the flame red braids of Anne Shirley
You’re still proud of the softcover you brought home as a classroom prize
and I tell you about the thick early edition my sisters and I read and reread,
the soft pages that also bear my Mom’s young fingerprints

Parade

Tuesday 19th May Reached Prince Albert at noon today...The people of Prince Albert have been shut in from the rest of the world for several weeks and they welcomed us with joy as their deliverers.

Poplar, spruce, tamarack
farms tucked in between
dappling glades: a man
could grow roots here,
like the ones that surface
serpentine, twist
and coil along resined
groves. We are
heroes for these
shut-ins, blockaded and
held hostage, separated
from bastions of civility by
the rebels and their
savage uprising.
The occasional sullen
look that I catch
is, confessably,
quite surprising.
* * *

May 10, 1884 1 year earlier, the Prince Albert Times says of the Dominion Government, "Where they get the information which induces them to believe the people are likely to submit much longer , we do not know; but we can answer them that they need not look for their friends among the Canadians, half breeds, or Indians, as they are likely soon to be made aware of in a manner at once startling and unpleasant." The editorial is translated into French and circulated among the Metis communities, too.

The town is filled with
redcoats and despair;
but civility hides
hostility like red hides
the true colours of these
men from the East, drawing
wage to teach us who
calls the shots, who
fires them, too.
Even a borrowed American
complete with the latest
war machine.

Dealing death
efficiently, what else are taxes
for.
Save your breath
in cheering them on, they've won
the battle, not the
war.
***
Poundmaker
resumed control of the
bands today. Fine Day's
war lodge
was taken down. Father
Cochin
has been sent to sue
for peace.
And we ate well five days, from
supply wagons. There is that,
at least.

Kitchen: Vegetables

My brief days count up to one hundred
and no further: I am whole vegetables,
sprouted beans, buffed skin hiding seed

There is no cooking here, the day is
just so: sun setting shadows,
birds no longer singing, chirp automaton

Like the clock ticking
on the shelf that holds the dishes,
the dishes that will never be used

My tongue makes spit and begs tomorrow
thoughts already with the fall
even while the lilacs bloom: profuse

Intoxicant. One hundred day is fleshy purple
(hunger rubs a hidden bruise)
I am a table full of vegetables

The sun has hit the leaves
birds say what is necessary
clock ticks a going

Tongue licks the lips of vegetables
it is as it is
as it is

what to do when you suspect your husband is having an affair

start shaving your legs again. get a sitter. remind yourself that love is god's greatest magic trick. you have to believe in it if you want it to work. want it to work. remember that tears are the body's way of saying enough and you swore you'd never have enough. begin with the basics. wedding vows, birthday dinners, the speed at which he undresses you. the space your body has made for the weight of his hands. how he looks you in the eye every time you make love. how when you make love something like a soul inside the carriage of your body says, honey, this is it. now is not the time for questions. so bury them in the backyard beneath the swing set. they will only rise and fall with legs of nausea.

let suspicion enter your life like a new lover. let it tease you with the briefest of kisses. let it win you over. recall the depth of the senses. apply yourself diligently to the task of taste, smell, touch, and sight. do not covet. do not call. watch and follow. lean and brace. do not be afraid to let the fabric of your life pull and tear. do not adjust your wardrobe. do not weave. soon these threads will disappear. simply flick off the lightswitch of your desire and never tiptoe back. get used to the dark. familiarize yourself with exits. leave windows open, doors unlocked. do not turn the living room lights down low. do not loosen the kitchen's overhanging light. this is a crime you can never interrogate. a case you will never solve. so let him in. watch him undress. but do not meet his eye in the screen of gentle shadows. think of women in red bandannas, flexing. think gloria stienem. think tie dye. do not fall apart with love.

finally know that sex has always required trespassing. that bodies lose their marks. list the things that belong to you and gather your belongings in a safe place. (this is what family is). console yourself with the knowledge that divorce is simply the distance between two bodies, the river of sheets that rises after love. there is no border finer than skin. assure yourself that this was inevitable. that all flesh falls away.

Thirty-day pass: 5. The Island

Red

Iron-rich dirt the color of brick,

red rocks, rusty sand.

How startling to see it:

the soil is red.

Blue

Heavier than sky, deep

cradle rocks the island

in dense aquamarine light.

Green

Needles, blades, sharp-toothed leaves

viewed from a distance, coalesce

into a soft mass.

Northern Lights

Monday 18th May Started for Prince Albert this morning and made one half the distance...it is a small scattered town of about 1,000 people...the centre of a flourishing settlement surrounded by a fine country...one of the finest that could be desired. Excellent for farming purposes; abundance of firewood and timber.

Knifing north, away from
the eye-dulling flats, from riverbumped
hills and gophered grasslands.

Land more like
home. Forest, farmland,
something akin to
civilization. Country
worth fighting for.

***
May 10, 1884 - one year earlier

The Prince Albert Times newspaper taunts the Dominion Government, labeling it, "a greedy, grasping, overbearing bully"

Dictates from the East:
always appearing
like unwelcome weather
blowing in too fast;
an infestation
of grasshoppers.

Pretending they know best
as an honoured dinner guest
at the far end of the table.

Selling our weekday cutlery to buy
their Sunday sable.

how to tell if your neighbour is a psychopath

does he pace? does he look you in the eye so intently that you need a nap or an asprin afterward? does his handshake leave you fumbling for weeks? does he sometimes answer to a different name? does his body spasm and rock whenever a joke is told? does he stand on his doorstep and shift his gaze from house to house like a soldier absorbing the proportions of bodies before he shoots? do you find yourself fantasizing about the strength of his hands in the dark of your house? do you find yourself feeling choked?

Mrs. Eiffel Tower Crashes Her Jet

Picket fence, barbed wire,
arrows and fighter jets,
latticework of metal going up, up, up!
Everything comes to a point, eventually,
except, what was it, two parallel lines? Forever
distant, unable to kiss, though on the horizon
they may give this illusion.

Distance to the tower: too far.
The tower asks for her intentions.
She is silent and thrumming, thinking
of the architecture of love, resolved
to point her jealous hunk of metal
to ground.