Tag Archives: Aboriginal
QU’APPELLE AND ESL
QU’APPELLE AND ESL
(Cree – Kah-tep-was “The river that calls”)
They come today
from countries far away
to learn this country’s
names for river, lake, and tree
There was a time
the natives of this land
sat in these same desks
in de-braided fear
learning to forget them
ALAS POOR…
ALAS POOR…
And we in this new old land turning up
with our plow
hammer heads, and arrowheads, and sometimes
a bone or two
and if one would be an uncrushed skull it would
be no Yorick that we knew
This noun, once verb, would mock us
in its grinning
all those with whom we might converse
are laid neath Hamlet’s soil
His redder kin scattered
like his bones
SACRED DANCE
SACRED DANCE
The Bushmen of the Kalahari
dance all night in a circle
dance a calf-deep trench in the sand
In a circle around the circle
sit those in need of a healing
And because it is a sacred dance
any dancer at any time may step
out of the dance and do the healing
and then return to the dance again
Knowing without knowing
that everyone is a healer sometimes
everyone needs a healing sometimes
You just keep dancing
DREAM CATCHER
DREAM CATCHER
(for Maia)
Boogie man boogie man get out of my dream
Boogie man boogie man can’t make me scream
Cause I’ve got a dream catcher over my bed
I’ve got a dream catcher right over my head
Now only sweet dreams can make it through
and boogie man boogie man that ain’t you
Boogie man boogie man get out of my dream
Boogie man boogie man can’t make me scream
You were feeding on my fears all night long
that’s what was making you big and strong
Now dream catcher and me have got you beat
so you have to eat at Susie’s down the street
Boogie man boogie man get out of my dream
Boogie man boogie man can’t make me scream
A KINDER GENTLER GOD
A KINDER GENTLER GOD
As we look around the world today we see
with God as our father in trouble all are we
Fathers as you know, often have a tendency
towards discipline, judgement and wrath
while grandparents almost always
take a wiser, gentler path
There may be much to learn
as we choose, or create our deity
from the Blackfoot, Sioux and Cree
who still gather at Grandfather’s knee
EAGLE BONE WHISTLE
EAGLE BONE WHISTLE
Chain breathing with the Sioux
at a South Dakota sun dance
Praying that I might become
more perfectly hollow
That thy music may play
more beautifully through me
STONE HAMMERS
STONE HAMMERS
In my house
two stone hammers
picked from the ancient land
where Cree and Blackfoot fought and died
Beside the deep ruts of the Red River carts
showing yet through a hundred years of grass
Mounted police on the Fort Walsh trail
to stop the whisky and move the rail
Stony silent bookends now
with many more stories to tell
than the pages they hold between them
KENDRA
KENDRA
When the natives of this land
suffered a death such as this
they knew how to grieve
They felt it to the depths of their being
and cut deep into their arms and legs
that they might reach deeper
Today my great friends
I reach and bleed with you
Written for my cousin Kenny and his wife Betty on the tragic loss of their eighteen year old daughter
MANIWAKI MOON
MANIWAKI MOON
Through the sacred fire at the sacred lake
by the tree twice lightning struck
sacred tobacco and sacred cedar
burned in a sacred way
We circle and leave by the Eastern door