Ten Poems inspired by Three Day Road by Joseph Boyden

Ekiiwaniwahk

I am a lumpen Indian in your
world of
fat fragrance –
these
dusty roads of
ordered chaos.

I am a lumpen Indian in your
high pitched melodies of
bustling walk and jostle –
too many:
you are “blackened by soot”;
you “bend in defeat.”

I am a lumpen Indian in –
my own land,
you
wemistikoshiw.

I am a lumpen Indian in
full bloom.
In time you will understand.
In time I will move on.



Noohtaawiy

I remember your eyes
that winter,
your eyes that pierced the snow
into rays of dancing twilight;
(the rays of Wawahtew).

Everything you saw
I took – in growth and in solitude.
In me was you.

I remember the pain
that winter,
the pain that gripped our bellies
in dull aches of desire.

The pain that for some was
too much to bear.
You tried to stop them.

You had no choice, hookimaw.

I remember the rum of the
wemistikoshiw,
the rum “that loosened their tongues” -
the foreign blade digging deep
into your heart.

I remember you, Noohtaawiy.
I remember your spirit collapse
In aching death and emerging
in me.



Kipwahakan

You think you can train me
as your pet as your slave as your
own
But I have teeth and fur and
breasts wild with
desire.

You think you can lock me
in bars of sequence of rows of
order
But I have eyes and claws and
visions
that will bless me until my
zero hour.



Shacocihew

Simplify the hunt
and listen to my heart beat
with animal desire.
(I watch you inch by
like the clouds of summertime;
you are patient like
the trickling sap).

Come into my
askihkan and whisper words
into my ears down to my toes.
(I won’t understand
a thing you say
but I will feel the pulse
of your appetite.)

Let me melt
into your pale skin
tonight.
(I will consume your
every inch and
we will be separated
by a hair’s breadth).



Mamishihiwewin

My ahcahk grips the walls of intent
in the house of your God;
I bleed and purge myself
of broken desire.

My lungs roar like fire in
this matatosowin - blood stones
chant in whistles and shrieks
of ejection.

My body swelters with moisture
the smell of bad meat and with it:
my one connection
to your people -
gone.



Kimotowin

Your ears perked like butterfly wings
under golden reverie –
the summer sun.

You played the games of five winters
in linear dugouts of
staring eyes.

But I have a sweeter forest for you –
an endless field of play.

Here you will meet the whiskeyjack,
the marten and our brother,
the bear.

Here you will learn the ways of
our people.



Ka Nipihat Windigowa

I am what I am –
this bitter gift raw like the meat
of solitude.

I wish you hadn’t seen
what you saw –
and yet I’m grateful.

Your tender face patient –
your inquisitive eyes
alarmed.

*

You are next in line
for the hunt.

Here you will see that I need you
even more than you
need me.



Masinahikewin

“You must do what
you must do.” I said
in scraps of pain passive like
the eyes of a rabbit.

*

(I knew of the “black horizons”
smothered in decay,
the rotting flesh and meat -
exposed bones of
innocence.

I knew of the “constant thunder”
crying the cries of
rusted dreams broken -
dead and dying
bodies.

I knew that blood and earth
would collide.

I did not understand the
wemistikoshiw, and yet –

I knew.)

*

I cry:
“Know that you go to a place
that will change you
forever.”



Omiimowi Pineshish

They dance in pairs of
puffed up breasts,
wings astride –
strong like the eagle and
noble like the bear.

They circle with tip toes in snow,
raising their intent
to the manitous above.

Right now,
you and they
are the only creatures
alive on this earth.

You watch and listen
with poise and wonderment;
your body growing and
mind sweetly following.

This life, this circle becomes fierce
in your living breath –
and
sparks appear.



Ntashiikewin

Your eyes are wide
in fear, ribs jutting out with heart
exposed;
“steam pushing in your lungs
like poison”.

Daemons from your body’s centre
are twisting free,
taunting your ahcahk
from its wounded depths
in this dark repose.

I pray to Gitchi Manitou,
I pray to the animal spirits
and the four directions
these
jagged memories consume
us both in fear.

Steam rising,
Lungs sweating,
Heart pounding,
Sinew aching,
Fears collapsing,

Fresh air explodes
and then –

the beautiful release.
(we are home).

I walk

i walk in green –

green twilight; green cell walls
of shrubs of grass of timberline
swelling with fecundity
and vigorous mushroom tips
after raindrops: verdure.

i walk in sequence -

rows of particulating bergamot,
golden rods and snapdragons
three inches apart; plucked weeds.
row of order (of reason)
unbeknownst to my Cree ancestors
who crave unscathed chaos
in their fatherland.

i walk in beauty –

beauty in a child’s momentum.
beauty in cadences of pink laughter
and distant chatter.
beauty in numbers and
beauty in the smile she gave me
as she walked
while i walked: even though,
i will never see her again.

The White Bone

inspired by the novel by Barbara Gowdy

She forages in the night,
soothing matriarch,
time to dropthe tunnel that has been dug.

Wandering circles, this desert's cue,
of birth scent dorsal
and low to ground.
Sand like silk in dribbles and drops.

New born suckles
in shadow memory transfer -
hair unscathed in deliberation and
ears bent in innocent trace

as she falls.

*

The exhalation of shadows
is how darkness spreads.

This is death as creation.