Runaway Dreams (9 page)

Beyond here is the residential school where

hundreds of our kids were sent sprawling

face first against the hard-packed ground

of a religion and an ethic that said “surrender”

and when they couldn't or wouldn't

they wound up here just beyond the gaze

of the building that condemned them to

this untended stretch of earth

everywhere

the unmarked graves of a people

whose very idea of god sprang from

the ground in which they're laid

there is no fence here no hedgerow

to proclaim this as a sanctuary or even

as a resting place only bitter twirls

of barbed wire canted wildly on posts

rotted and broken and snapped by neglect

unlike the marble and granite headstones

that proclaim the resting places of nuns

and priests devoted to the earthly toil

of saving lost and ravaged souls

for a god and a book that says

to suffer the children to come

unto the light that never really

shone for them

ever

even the wind is lonely here

clouds skim low and the chill

becomes a living thing that invades

the mind and there is nothing

not even prayer in any human tongue

that can lift the pall of dispiritedness

created here for them to sleep in

a brother's grave somewhere in the rough

and tangle of the grasses can't be seen

only felt like a cold spot between the ribs

and a caught breath sharp with tears

bitterness

what they slipped onto the tongues

of generations removed from us

like a wafer

soaked in vinegar

they say we Indians never say goodbye

but I doubt that's true

no people in their right minds or hearts

would cling to these sad effigies

the knowledge that someone once thought

that they were less than human

deserving nothing in the end

but an unmarked plot of earth

beneath a sullen sky the weeds and grasses

stoked by wind to sing their only benediction

we bid goodbye

to nuns and priests

and schools

that only ever taught us pain

keep your blessing for yourselves

in the end you're the ones

who need them

There's nothing like a can of Spam mixed

with eggs, canned potatoes and a mug of

campfire coffee with the grounds still in

cooked over an open flame

and even if there was it wouldn't measure

up to the crucial test of how it tastes

on bannock made on a stick

that's just the plain truth of things

well, a pickerel packed in clay and tossed

into the fire comes awful close

as long as there's greens and wild mushrooms

tossed over flame and then blueberries

all washed down with Ojibway tea

then a smoke to share

with the Spirits might

just come close

but then again a nice moose rubaboo

properly done with flour, water and maple

syrup with bannock for dipping is hard

to resist at the best of times provided

there's a cob of corn roasted on the fire

with the husk still on and water from

the river cold and rich with the mineral taste

that reminds you of rocks and lakes upstream

and time and the fact that the way

to an Ojibway man's heart

isn't through his stomach

but through his recollections

while seated on a cheap red stool

in a plastic diner looking out

over a freeway choked with cars

and people hungering

for something better tasting

than success

in memory of Norval Morrisseau

Diogenes you said went walking

with a lamp in the broadest daylight

in a search for one good man

as though that would explain how

they came to find you lurking

in the bushes beyond Hastings & Main drunk

that early summer of '87

raving and talking in ebullient colours

as though the air were a canvas

and legends are born on the dire breath

of rot-gut sherry and the twisting snake

of dreams bred in the bruise of hangover mornings

where Diogenes wakes to crawl

on hands and knees into the light himself

you chuckled then

said they'd never get you

and the truth is they never did

in the belly of legends lives

the truth of us

where shape-shifters walk and flying skeletons

cruise the long nights of our souls

and the tricksters inhabit the dark

where the light of the lamp

you shone there bleeds fantastic colour

into the crevices we've learned

to be afraid to look into for fear

we'd see ourselves peering outward

and know we needed you or your like

to paint us home

you talked to me of birch bark scrolls

and your grandfather's cabin in the trees

where the map of our being laid out in pictographs

was translated in the talk you said

was the original talk of our people

that's rarely spoken anymore

then chuckled again and held me fast

with obsidian eyes that gleamed

with teachings and spoke softly of the stories

that came to fill the canvas of you

resplendent in the harmony and sheen

of colours you said were meant to heal

mystic tones and the hue of shaman songs

the river of black becoming the contrast

that teaches us everything about ourselves

if we're willing to bob in its current

so you set them there in the weft and weave

of canvases despite those Ojibway who claimed

that you gave too much away

even though they could only ever guess

at what you meant to say

because they'd closed their ears and hearts

and minds to stories alive

in the belly of legends

you said to me then

“they'll never get me”

and the truth is they never did

all through that long day ensconced

in the feigned rusticity of the Jasper Lodge

you made me tea and told me

the migration story of my people falling

into the old talk every now and then

but I never minded because it was authentic

and the dip and roll of Ojibway became

another way to enter it together

keep it

close to me like the migis shell

you pressed into my palm

when I made it to the ocean eventually

I left it there

returned it to the place of its beginnings

and watched while the surf rolled it over

and over again until it disappeared

like the brush when it's lifted

at the end of the line

I don't know why it is, Morrisseau

that we come to cling to stories so

only perhaps that something in us understands

that what we get from reality sometimes

is only the veneer, the fixative perhaps

that holds everything in place so the art

can happen underneath it all forever

Copper Thunderbird, you said to me

tell the story for the story's sake

let the line lead them where it will

and don't forget that the best ones come

from everything that's gone before

so never be afraid to splash

enough colour to wake them up to that

and in that way, you said

they'll get you in the end

and the truth is

they sometimes do

You drive west out of Calgary

swing left at Bragg Creek to the east and down

through Millarville then due south again

letting the blacktop lead you through Turner Valley

while Van Morrison sings something about

travelling himself and with the windows open

the svelte jump of rhythm and blues

gets punctuated by the sudden cry

of a red-tailed hawk skimming across the highway

and the black comma of a bear

eating berries on a hill

you've come to love this drive

the unnecessary westward loop of it

you take just because it feels so good

to motor through this country

that rollicks with good cowboy humour

and rolls with the solemnity

of a well-told tribal tale

this ancient sea

crumpled up into foothills

at Turner Valley you swing west again

and climb into the arms of the Rockies

and you've switched to Leos Janacek now

letting the romantic swirl of violins

ease you upward so that

rounding a curve you look out across

the great purple stretch of prairie

and the sloping curve of the planet

framed by clouds and the ghostly echo

of the pounding hooves of Peigan ponies

chasing buffalo to the cliff in the gully

where women wait with knives and clubs

and honour songs to take the sacred meat

of their older brother and join it

to their own

the road bends into grizzly country

and there's a long sloping downward curve

between the hump of twin ridges

and where it levels out there's the sudden

smell of medicine sage from a meadow

flat as a table

and you ease the car to the shoulder

clamber out and squint across the wide green

to the resolute grey and weathered face

of the granite cliffs at its southern edge

there's a packet of tobacco in the trunk

and retrieving it you set out across

this perfect meadow while ground squirrels

voice their irritation at your presence

and the smell of sage is so sharp

you can feel it in your lungs

at the far end the ground drops off at your feet

and there's the gorge in a narrow

vertical drop to the river twisting

into rapids and pools far below

and the sage is growing thick as hair

on the sheer slope of it

so you offer tobacco and a prayer

and bend to gather this sacred medicine

and you can hear the river and the wind

and the voices of the squirrels

and the swish of the meadow grasses

like the whisper of fancy-dance shawls

and young girls' feet kicking gracefully

to the beat of a drum

and you lose yourself so completely

in the timeless feel of this act of gathering

that when the wind picks up you smell

the rain and there's a sudden bank of clouds

pushed in low above the cliffs

with the roll of thunder and the smell of lightning

and you stand and just for a second

in the middle of that meadow

you see a circle of tipis

and the people dancing

but there's a flash of lightning

and the vision winks out

and you're stood there

on the precipice

with an armful of sage

feeling honoured

and blessed and a little weak in the knees

but happier than you've ever been

walking back across that meadow

the rain pelts down and you lift your face

so that it can wash you

and reaching the car you tuck the medicine away

and turn to the rain again

and dance shirtless

in that meadow where the people came

in the Long Ago Time to sing and celebrate

this power you feel all around you

and in that rain and in the presence

of the vision you took for real

you came to realize that freedom

is the shrugging off of worldly things

and that in the ceremony of that

lies a common practical magic

that's not so much Indian as it is human

an ordinary thing we lose

when we cease believing in things

like dancing shirtless in the rain

medicine and ceremony and prayer

and the ability of the planet to show us things

she keeps sheltered in her breast

driving home you listened to the music

of the medicine on the seat behind you

the sage, the women's power

grandmother teachings

holding everything together