Gatherings Volume XI

The En'owkin Journal of
First North American Peoples
Flight Scape:
a multi-directional collection
of Indigenous creative works

Fall 2000

,;

I
RECEIVED

MAR 2 6 2001
S.f.U. LIBRARY

SERIALS

edited by Florene Belmore

Theytus Books Ltd.
Penticton, BC

Gatherings
The En'owkin Journal of First North American Peoples
Volume XI 2000

Table of Contents
Editor's Note I 7

Copyright © 2000 for the authors
Annand Garnet Ruffo

Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data
Main entry under title:

Gatherings

Blueberries I 9
Detour I 11
Prayer/ 13
Now that the Galleons have Landed/ 14
Carol Snow Moon Bachofner

Burial Dress / 16
Lost and Found In My Own Life / 17
Annual.
ISSN 1180-0666

Dawn Dumont

ISBN 0-919441-93-9

1. Canadian literature (English)--Indian authors--Periodicals. * 2.
Canadian literature (English)--20th century--Periodicals. * 3
American literature--Indian authors--Periodicals. 4. American
literature--20th century--Periodicals. I. En'owkin International
School of Writing. II. En'owkin Centre.
PS8235.I6G35
C810.8'0897
CS91-031483-7
PR9194.5.I5G35

Fancy Dancer/ 18
Love Story I 19
The Right Thing I 21
Untitled/ 23
Message from the Conqueror / 24
Eric A. Ostrowidzki

Banana-Rama-Shama / 25
Gerry William

Editor:
Cover Art:
Design & Layout:

Florene Belmore
Margaret Orr
Florene Belmore

Please send submissions and letters to Gatherings, En'owkin
Centre, R.R.2, Site 50, Comp. 8, Penticton, BC, V2A 6J7, Canada
Previously published works are not considered.

The publisher acknowledges the support of the Canada Council,
Department of Canadian Heritage and the British Columbia Arts
Council in the publication of this book.

Fever/ 29
Jane Inyallie

Belinda The Biker/ 37
ironhorse I 38
the forgotten son / 40
the line/ 43
Gordon Bird

Terminal Frost 1. / 44
Terminal Frost 2. / 45
Terminal Frost 3. / 46
Terminal Frost 4. / 47

Table of Contents
Jack D. Forbes

New Age of Circuses / 48
Picasso's Fall/ 52
Women Made of Earth and Honey/ 54
Rosemary White Shield

Burying My Mother/ 61
My Answer to the Professor Who Said I Should Write More Like
a Man to Be Any Good / 62
On Trying to Make Chit Chat at Dinner / 63
Zuya Wiyan / 64
Nagi Zuya Mani / 65
James Colbert

Thrown Away/ 67
Janet Rogers

Magic Carpets / 71
No Reservation / 72
Kim Shuck

Because the Feet of Four Indian Women Might Change the
Weather on the East Coast/ 74
Some Things I Know About Love that Might be of Some Use / 75
Home Songs / 77
Larry Nicholson

Residing Poem / 79
Steal My Thunder/ 82
coyote dreamz & rocks / 83
Leanne Flett Kruger

Identity Crisis / 85
I Know Who I Am / 87
William George

Mountain Bedded Rock / 90
My Pledge I 91
Sockeye Salmon Dream / 92

Table of Contents
Margaret Orr

Life Line / 93
Green Light, Red Light / 96
Trophy Room / 97
Troy Hunter

Geronimo's Grave/ 99
White Picket Fences / 100
Vera Manuel

Abused Mothers Wounded Fathers/ 101
Linda LeGarde Grover

Anishinaabikwe-Everywoman / 103
Chi-Ko-ko-koho and the Boarding School Prefect, 1934 / 104
Grandmother at Mission School / 106
To the Woman Who Just Bought That Set of Native American
Spirituality Dream Intrepretation Cards/ 108
Winona Conceives the Trickster/ 110
Laura A. Marsden

Dispelling the Myth of STONEFACE / 111
Marijo Moore

Daughter of the Sun / 113
Rasunah Marsden

The Cunning of Men/ 116
Yellow Leaves/ 120
Richard Van Camp

The Night Charles Bukowski Died/ 121
Suzanne Rancourt

Honour Song/ 127
Crooked Nose/ 128
Sipping / 131
Throwing Stars / 134
The Viewing / 136
win blevins

Respect/ 139

Table of Contents
Amy-Jo Setka

Gatherings Volume XI

Editor's Note

Watersong / 145
Shirley Brozzo

We Have Walked The Same Places/ 146
The Voice of the Elders / 149
Mukwa I 151
How The Beaver Got His Tail / 155
Vera M. Wabegijig

Truth and Dare ask Raven "The Big Question"/ 157
Selina Hanuse

Chasing the Dragon/ 161
Just Around the Eyes/ 163
My Mornings / 164
The Room / 165
To be a Child when it Snows / 166
Twelfth Christmas / 167
Vanessa Nelson

Horror Hill / 168
Kayenderes

"So Yous Wount Be Put Away" I 173
D. Lynn Daniels

After celebrating ten years of Gatherings last year, it is an honour and a
pleasure to edit the first volume of the second decade of Gatherings: The
En 'owkin Journal of First North American Peoples. As an Aboriginal
publishing house dedicated to Aboriginal Literatures, Theytus Books is
also proud to bring the publication of the only annual literary journal for
Aboriginal voices into a new era. In this eleventh volume, we have sought
submissions under the theme "Flight Scape: Amulti-directional collection
of Indigenous creative works."
In the past year, I have played a lead role in developing the theme,
soliciting submissions, reading through the submissions, making the
selections, going through the editorial process with the authors, and
compiling and producing the Journal. As usual, many other people have
also committed their time and talent toward the effort required to publish
this journal each year. I'd like to thank Rasunah Marsden for her valuable
imput. And of course the staff of the En'owkin Centre, a special thanks to
Regina Gabriel. Many thanks also to the Aboriginal authors for having the
courage to write and the generosity to share their work. You inspire us all.

Marguerite / 175
Dan Ennis

The Story of My Childhood Journey In The White Wilderness / 180
Author Notes / 185

I now realize what a monumental task it is for the editors and Theytus
Books to publish Gatherings on an annual basis. However, I also
understand the importance of publishing a current and vibrant collection
of Aboriginal Literatures each year. It is, in a sense, a documentation of
our voice that affirms our continuing presence both on the landscape and
in the literary world. Aboriginal authors continue to persevere, drawing
back on our ancestors and traditions to find a solid foundation, and
reaching out into uncharted territory to develop new literary techniques.
Florene Belmore

7

Armand Garnet Ruffo

Blueberries

The end of summer
and we pick blue
berries, pluck them
with delicate precision,
open ourselves to the goodness
that is theirs
drop the offering
onto our ready tongue
and drift into heavy clouds
bringing us to remember
friends who move
marry
make pies and jam
they ate as children for their own children,
holding to the sweetness
they once loved.
and divorced
that's them too
when fingers cramp, stop,
mouths close in denial,
and the heart's want
is replaced by the sickly feeling
of having too much
too little.
But here kneeling in the ruins
of stumps as far as the eye can see,
we take these berries
blue as the new life they are,
in gratitude

9

Armand Garnet Ruffo

humility,
yet lustful for the taking.
The dusty logging road at our backs
we stand, stretch to leave
at day's end
and laugh in our full desire
all the way home.

Armand Garnet Ruffo

Detour

Once upon a time I rode shotgun for a trickster kind of guy
who thought we lived in a western, and it would always stay
that way. The Lone Ranger and Tonto riding into the sunset.
Both of us wanting to be the Lone Ranger. That's us in the
picture he carried around in his head, six years old, leather
holsters and cowboy hats. Fringed shirts and moccasins from
my auntie. The two of us, into the world the same time, the
same neighbourhood, and before long crawling into cars
through windows, wrecks with doors wired shut, locked in as
we had been from birth. Roaring down the road in one gear.
Full speed come what may.
I wonder
where you are these days
last time
you were working in a distillery
and bought an empty barrel
you soaked
and let sit
later
we drank the whiskey water
and got piss drunk
for old.time's sake
talk about a hangover
How many times did we make it into town and finish up at the
Sportsman's Hotel on some Friday evening. Meeting the folks
from up and down the line who would come in and get
loosened up. Until we too got bent out of shape and then back
into the car and back into the bush. Thought we could live like
that forever. Though I remember once looking around at all the
boozed up old timers and swearing their end wouldn't be
mine. Some weren't even old. Like Terry. When the doctors

10

11

Armand Garnet Ruffo

Armand Garnet Ruffo

opened him up to stop the hemorrhaging, they took one look
and closed him back up again. His stomach looked like a tire
blown to hell from all the Aqua Velva and cleaning fluid.
Last time we rode together
you ended up with a woman
you picked up
hitchhiking
you always
had a way with women
about the time
I decided
enough was enough
it was time
to move on
about the time
you lost your son
Remember? We weren't much older than him when got stuck
between those two fence posts. We'd been out raiding gardens
for strawberries, your own mother's, which always seemed so
absurd because she gave us all we wanted, but I guess you
preferred to eat them at night with the earth still clinging. Or
was it sitting in front of her with a blank face when she
complained about the little devils. We were heading down the
lane when a car appeared, and we dashed for a gateway and
got jammed together. Like so much that came later, we had to
wiggle our way out of that one. Like the time you ran away
from home because you had fallen in lust with a girl up the line
and were bound to get to her. And me walking the tracks
behind you wishing I were fishing. Why I tagged along, I still
don't know. Though I suppose for the ride. Always the ride,
and a wild one it was, riding high in trickster style.

12

Prayer

I placed a braid of sweetgrass
on your coffin and sat quietly.
Outside the sky was dark,
and I wore dark glasses
because it was still too bright.
At the graveyard the priest blessed
your passing. An Anishinaabe Elder
appeared, laid down tobacco
and spoke in your language.
Someone asked me who he was
and I answered a part of your life
beyond ours.
You said you wanted a feast
for all your family and friends.
My heart split, I dug my fork
deep into it and chewed
and chewed unable to let go.
The old people held my hand
and told me stories about you
as I prayed for rain.

13

:i

Armand Garnet Ruffo

Unless serious action is taken few Indigenous languages to
Canada will survive in the 21st century. The Royal Commission
on Aboriginal Peoples

Now that the Galleons have Landed

Where are the words
of Turtle Island?
rooted in earth
painted on stone
and bark,
carved
into cedar
totems,
a thousand year old
memory
What is left
but dream
new words
written on paper
in the smoke
prayer
in the angry
loss
in the weak
catch
emptied
and flailing.
What is left
but to struggle
with mouth
hooked
and discover
this tongue
14

Armand Garnet Ruffo

fitted perfectly
is the sound
of a prisoner
on a boat
bound
to wailing
death
For the ancestors
huddled before
the story of fire,
Nanabush
his laughter
spilling
like his seed
blooming
into the tikinagan,
a baby
who sings
every syllable
of her mother
earth

(cradleboard)

This loss
my burden
as I gasp
to stay the course
in this language
shoved into
my relations
and now gathered
in my own
bundle
in my own
voice
to deafen me.
15

Carol Snow Moon Bachofner

Carol Snow Moon Bachofner

Burial Dress

Carefully

Prayerfully

Inside, outside
Our Ways

Lost and Found In My Own Life

The questions always came, pouring down in rain
or whooshing past me in wind. It was easier to avoid
them on perfect blue days, on brilliant sunlit mornings.

Sinew sewn
of

Ash and Fire

Old Days

But sooner or later the clouds pressed me for answers
and I'd retreat into darkness. I had no one to ask
in whitened kitchens or on wooden Roman pews.

Spirit home
I learned to accept the void, tum my eyes inward,
travel without a guide. Oh, there were always stories
told over some holiday glass, but nothing served serious;

Elk skin

Doe skin

Supple, softened

Fore st grown

Breath dress

Death dress

Shell and Bead

Fingering
Back, forth
Gentle sway
Platform and Pyre

merely wild imaginings of relatives, daft with aged
mentality, dismissed in unproved authority. Yet my spirit
housed a fire of voices pleading through the storm.

Woman's own

The answers began without warning in my forty-third year.
A slow rain of knowing started. Soon I was riding the river
of my own history and ready to meet streams of those before.

Fringing

Hence-hidden voices cleared the curtain of the wind
to reveal sacred word and thought. By flaming night
I heard them calling me by a new and familiar name.

Together alone
of

Whitened frays

I saw faces peering through the gauze of rain,
jowled woman faces laid precisely over my
grandmother's face, my mother's face and mine.

Indian bones
I recognized myself at last.
The questions still come. But these days
I know where to tum for the answers.
I know where to tum.

16

17

Dawn Dumont

Dawn Dumont

Fancy Dancer

Love Story

My men have no hold on me
they are dreams I left behind
they are memories I forget most times
no more tears for me

She met him on the ball field
Strong, tall and straight
He threw
She caught
They knew

then
you dance, jump into the sky and bend your leg coming down,
six feet high and sweaty glistening movement you are free you
are the softness in my knees your breath I feel as it leaves your
lips and as you dance closer to me my body moves and I am
dancing too and you spin and spin away from me leaving only
that sexy smile to show you saw
the song ends
cuz all songs end
and I quickly turn awayno more tears for me

And then they moved
Onto parties and dances
Playing pool
Friends always around
And when they weren't
Just the stars
And they knew
The first time wasn't so bad
A push
But she held him
And calmed him
And loved him even more
Sometimes she'd complain
To him, to friends
She'd say I'll leave
I'll take the kids
I'll go far away
And he'd say
I'm sorry I love you
And cry
If you lived there
Maybe you know
How the next part goes
How she falls

18

19

Dawn Dumont

Dawn Dumont

Out of herself
How she bruises
In secret places
How she learns
A careful walk
Such an old story
Played out so well
It was the only one they knew.

The Right Thing

Good God its horrid
and bad
just plain sucks
for them
she says
rolling her eyes
and squeezing her face
together-so narrow and tight
skinny slim and white white.
She says
I want to work in human rights
right what's wrong
make things right.
Right.
I watch her make bread
kneading the dough
bony fists moving on it hard
pushing it down
pulling it up
fitting it into the pan.
Racism, sexism, ageism
homophobia
she spits them out like fire.
This same heat
I can feel
upon my face
when she laughs
at my ignorance.
Later her hand upon my shoulder
tell me about your people
she says

20

21

!
'

Dawn Dumont

I talk openly
freeing my stories
they enter the air
round faces
and dimpled smiles
bubbling laughter
at unkind times.
Shaking her head,
she says
how awful
I am going to change things.
I am going to make them better.
I am going to make them right.
Right.

22

Dawn Dumont

Untitled

Anishinaabe
he says and smiles
and I smile back
we have a secret
just me and him
on this comer
he begs
got a styrofoam cup of coins
but he starts Monday he says
got a job just today
where you from, we ask
that telling detail
he says poormans
and I know where
that is
ka-wa-ca-toose
I say-he nods
his mother once told him the name
we're far from home
the green prairies
the land of skies
the patient wind
the biting cold
but it seems warmer than here
why'd you leave
I think
but I know
his answer is too much like my own
to really want to hear
dreams are bigger than small reserves
and we leave to try them all
and sometimeswe end up street comers
cold alone and far from home
23

Dawn Dumont

Message from the Conqueror

At first I conquer you, how does not really matter. I could beat
you into the ground, or persuade you to accept my beliefs and
values, thus casting aside all that makes you different from me
-there are many other ways. Then I take what I need and
want whether it is important to you or not, whether it defines
your people or not. I do not care. I see only my children, my
possessions and my dreams. I cannot see your dreams. I
cannot see who you are. Your children, I see, but they just
seem dirty to me. When you argue that I have done you wrong,
I cannot agree. To me and my kind, it was sympathetic, not
cruel. And if cruel, then certainly necessary. True, in my
movies I admit you had an Eden but in my courts you were just
as mean as me. I did what I did to survive. You argue, you
plead, you cry, you throw your hands to the sky-sometimes,
in despair, you die. All of that is rather sad. I do sympathize.
But when your offer your hand and ask for help--I do not
want to respond. With your begging eyes and hopeful smile, I
want to cast you down. I want to pretend there is no you, or if
there is, then only the clean and whitewashed will I recognize.
I do not want to play anymore. I want you just to go away. I
do not want to hear your past, that you were victimized-I will
not listen to these lies. Let me be. I have things to do. Get on
with it-my world has no place for you.

24

T

Eric A. Ostrowidzki

Banana-Rama-Shama
(or, Political Bananas)

(Yes, we have no bananas,
We have no bananas today!)
1
They always come in unreal yellow
Like the unbruised skin of a
Chinese Courtesan in comic books.
Each one is a structural marvel,
A work of architectural perfection,
As if designed by the pioneering genius
of a corps of American engineers.
They seem so polished,
Though they are not stones,
And rarely, if at all,
They exhibit a brown spot
Fading into appearance,
A blemish of mortality,
Not an unsightly liver-spot or cancerous mole,
But the barest wisp of freckle, lightly dusted,
And tinged with the eclipsed penumbra of dusky-red.

2
Their sweetness is a disgusting sham,
A sugary ruse,
For they conceal
Within their pre-wrapped goodness
The green bitterness of poverty,
The bloated bellies of infants,
The bloody suppression of peasants
And the slaughter of justice, of morality, of innocence ...
All that dearth and death!
In thickly thrusting groves
25

Eric A. Ostrowidzki

Eric A. Ostrowidzki

Which bristle like a bunch of green-gloved fists
Clenched as if to crush the latest Revolutionary Party,
They appear like a judgment
Over this fertile land parcelled out
To the Banana Barons who hold a monopoly
On this Bonanza of Bananas.

15 cents to the Banana Barons
Who make all this deliciousness possible;
3 cents for me because of a store-sale;
And 1 cent for the pickers and washers
Who live in shanties like vagrants, beggars, and thieves.
Yes, the exploitation of poor workers is "good for the economy."

3
They conceal more than we will ever know,
Like the pungent spice of death
Bereft of its keening odour and taste.
I love to eat them,
To slowly peel their
Sun-warmed halcyon ripeness
Like soft horns of carved ivory.
I crave to touch them while
They lie mounded in tempting heaps in green bins
Like furless and plump golden-yellow bats,
And sleeping like quiescent pods in supermarkets ...
Then, when nobody is looking, I deftly
Lick the invisible film of ecstasy
Which sticks to the tips of my
Guilty fingers.
I cannot help myself.
No.

5
I burp.
I have a slight bit of indigestion.
Hopefully, tonight, I will be well enough
To sip my banana daiquiri
Topped off with a big slice of banana-cream pie.
I live for these small pleasures,
My petty addictions,
Which some have said have conquered
The lands and lives of less fortunate souls.
Yet I have earned the right to gorge myself,
The right to consume the plunder of the world,
An international cornucopia of
Red-orange mangos, kiwis, coconuts, and those eversucculent guavas!
If not me, then who else will profit by the losses of others?
So beautiful in their broad glossy leaves,
So abundant in their elongated, lobe-swollen, yellow
crescents,
They await to be plucked,
To be baptized in sparkling sheen of purifying acids,
And then trained and boated and trucked
To market.
Who will profit? I say.

4

I like my bananas doused in milk and sugar.
I like them sliced on my morning cereal,
Like mushy coins of fibrous fruit.
I bought them at 39 cents per pound
At the local Safeway Store.
To whom do I pay for my breakfast,
To whom do I owe an outstanding account?
8 cents to the Safeway store;
12 cents to the transporters and distributors;
26

6
Ecuador, Honduras, Guatemala .. .
Dole, Delmonte, Chicquita .. .
The game is the same,
27

Gerry William

Eric A. Ostrowidzki

Only the brand-names are different.
What matters to me how these
Long yellow loaves of honeyed manna come to
Cheer my table in the morning?
What care I for the lean brown bodies that
Waste in green-dripping heat,
So that I might savour
The Glut of Paradise
Like some Plantation-owner perspiring gently in white linen?
Can we love whom we are not?
Should we deny ourselves great plenitude
Because of the barren poverty and pain of another?
Should I blame myself
For my insatiable and rapacious desire
Which leads me to betray
The ban of boycotts
And to pursue the savagely selfish politics of consumption?
Left for two, maybe three days at most,
And already my bananas begin to rot
As if by some powerful inner corruption.

28

Fever

(an excerpt from "The Lake")
On the second day of the hunting trip, the syilx rounded
a bend of the mountain. The land was still save for the chirr of
grasshoppers jumping from the path of the nine horses and
their riders. The heat was constant, but it was also light, a
reminder of the height above the valley. Horse knew the
country well, and rode easily, letting his horse follow the lead
of the riders ahead.
Every so often Horse would tum to look behind. It was
instinctual. He had to know the country they passed as well as
the country they rode into. He also knew enough to watch for
any signs of pursuit from either animals or from the
Secwepmc, whose lands were very close.
Horse also had his mind elsewhere. Last night, just
before setting up camp, Horse had watched as Coyote, Sn-klip,
sat on a mound half a bowshot from the riders. Sn-klip s
boldness, always there, was different this time. He ignored the
other riders and stared at Horse, their eyes meeting and
locking. "What are you trying to tell me?" Horse asked.
Sn-klip cocked his head to the left, his ears flapping
forward.
Another rider, seeing this, grinned. "I think Sn-klip
likes you."
Horse grinned back. "I guess he has good taste."
This set up a round of humour which lasted until the
headman chose a camping site. By the time Horse looked
around, Sn-klip had faded into the low underbrush, his
lingering yip the only mark of his presence.
Sn-klip s bold stare was a message, this every syilx
knew. The other riders also knew that the message was
directed at Horse, and so left him to puzzle over what that
message might be. The headman had spotted elk, and less than
29

Gerry William

Gerry William

an hour's ride ahead.
Horse, being the last rider, paused at the bend. The
steady low hoof beats of the horses ahead quickly became
distant. Horse saw the distant blue ridges across the valley.
Many days' ride away, some of the mountains glinted with
streaks of white. Below where he sat the valley arced south,
briefly hooked right and then faded straight south out of sight.
The blue lake shimmered in the heat, its edges coloured a
lighter blue where the water lapped ashore. The lake's surface
was mottled with whitecaps, a contrast to the still warm air
which hovered higher up the slopes.
Horse kept seeing Sn-klip s mocking gaze. Something
warned him and he turned to look back where he had come
from. The shock of seeing Sn-klip so close without any
warning from his mount startled Horse. Sn-klip was agam
staring at Horse.
"What are you telling me, old one?"
Sn-klip was crouched on all fours, his head tilted
forward and his long ears laid back in a posture Horse hadn't
seen Sn-klip assume before.
At the moment their eyes met once again, a wind from
the south brought a quick chill to the air. The tree branches all
around remained still while the gusts of air made Horse's
mount nervous. Sn-klip was gone once more by the time Horse
had regained control of his mount. Horse suddenly felt the air
and sun spin around him, and he held onto his mount's mane
while the dizziness first swept over him, through him, and then
was gone as quickly as the return of the still air.

****
On the fifth day the hunters returned from a successful
hunt. The camp knew long before their arrival of their coming,
and the hunting party was met well before they came within
sight of the twenty lodges. While most of the hunters were
30

joyful in arriving, Horse was quiet. None of the other riders
had felt the wind which blew through him, nor had the trees
stirred. The headman told Horse he had had a vision, but
couldn't explain Horse's being sick.
"What you have seen and felt you must bring to our
Elders. They will know what signs to read."
Horse entered the teepee through the tulle mat cover.
He accepted the fact that four Elders were waiting as though
for him alone. He took a place near the fire, and thanked the
Creator for his health and the health of the camp. Then he sat
staring into the low flames until an Elder spoke from the
opposite side of the fire.
"It was a good hunt."
Another Elder spoke. "The elk were large and swift,
but not as swift as our young men."
"Yes, our young men can run fast."
The subdued laughter which followed trailed into the
sounds of the firewood as it burnt, sending shadows jumping
against the tulle mat walls. Although still daylight outside, it
could have been any part of the day or night. Horse waited, his
eyes glowing in the fire's light.
"How is old Sn-klip?"
Without looking away from the fire, Horse answered,
"Sn-klip tried to tell me something."
"Only you?"
The voice, being low, could have come from any of the
Elders.
"Sn-klip looked at me twice from close up."
"Aiyee. It is a sign, a dream."
"The second time there was a wind. It came and went
without warning, and I felt sick. Like I was both warm and
cold at the same time."
Another silence while someone threw another piece of
wood into the flames.
"We must move camp soon. Some of the families will
go root and berry gathering, while others will travel south. The
31

Gerry William

Gerry William

fish are coming."
"The signs are good. It will be a good year for our
people."
"Sn-klip talked with only Horse. Perhaps the message
is only for him, not for our people."
"We should think on this. Sn-klip s boldness means
something. I will talk to our shaman, the tl'ekwelix. When we
gather again I will have some answers."

****
The fire came on the wind, twists of flames spiralling
north like the breath of a forest fire. Red tongues consumed
everything in their way. The syilx fled in groups, scattering
towards safety, but the flames increased, lifting people from
their feet and sending them into the sky to disappear within the
walls of fire. Other syilx, panicked beyond all reason, dove
into the river, only to be swept away both by water and fire.
A black shape emerged from the sky. From its gaping
mouth a tall woman strode towards Horse. She was one of
them, a syilx, and yet so strange in her clothes of shimmering
colours. She moved as the wind moved, a wave of motion and
heat. Horse felt her coming like the coming of the first horse.
The land shifted around the woman. Behind her loomed a
floating object larger than the great peaks east of the valley.
The woman bore the carriage and marks of a warrior, a
scar running down her left cheek.
"I welcome you to our land," Horse managed to greet
the stranger.
The woman smiled and a warmth flooded through
Horse which had nothing to do with the tongues of flame
which continued to consume syilx everywhere.
"I have looked for you all my life," the woman bowed.
"When I give to you, I give myself."
"Good words. How may I help you?"
32

"I am your future. The future of your people. You
cannot help me. I come into your dreams, as I must."
"I understand. Can you help my people?"
The woman turned to gaze at the devastation. For a
long time she stood motionless, the winds of flame brushing
against her blue shimmering clothes without touching her, or
scorching the cloth. She only turned back to Horse as the
screams faded into the distance.
"Help isn't here. I cannot give you what you ask. But I
am here as proof that we will continue."
Horse stared at the great object which hung in the sky.
"Is there anything I can give you?"
The tall woman laughed. "Our people are dying around
us, and you ask whether you can help me. No, you cannot help
me. I bring you a simple message. The future will be yours
when you own it."
The woman faded then, as she strode back into the
floating object.

****
"I cannot say what this dream means."
The tl'ekwelix nodded, his dark eyes unreadable as he
leaned closer to the rocks and steam. The heat rolled around
them, cleansing Horse's body but grating against something
deep inside, a dark object which refused to move.
The ti 'ekwelix turned at last to Horse. "I know this
woman. She has appeared in my visions before, and in the
visions of other Elders. We cannot say who she is. She has
power, but that power cannot help us now. She is not from our
times."
Horse waited, his body a river of sweat running down
the black rock of his resistance. The tl 'ekwelix threw another
ladle of water onto the burning rocks, and a cloud of vapour
obscured them from each other. When the vapour became heat
33

Gerry William

Gerry William

and Horse could see the small wiry ti 'ekwelix, the shaman was
again looking towards him.
"We have been told of strange things coming our way.
There are people whose skins are the colour of the clouds and
more numerous than the grasshoppers along the hillsides. Our
brothers down south tell of empty villages and bodies floating
down rivers. Spirits roam this land now, angry spirits, strange
spirits. In the last moon one of our villages has disappeared.
The syilx who found the village felt sadness as he came close,
but something held him back from going in the village. He saw
an untended campfire in the middle of the village, but there
were no skahas, no dogs anywhere. Just ghosts which pushed
through the empty village. Not even the cry of babies. It was
the strangest feeling of the syilx 's life, and half of his head hair
turned white from fear. He ran for two days, forgetting even
his horse."
"Aiyee. Are we then to die without a fight?"
"We cannot fight ghosts, spirits. They are the land
itself. They are the woman of your dreams, something not
here. Something which we cannot touch."

****
It came in the first cough. The young hunter had

returned from a trip to a village southeast of the valley. Over
the last day of travel he felt light-headed, and he moved as if
he waded through water. A pleasant lethargy filled his body,
and his hands turned red from warmth. By the time he reached
his village, his hands contained a rash which he scratched,
unable to help himself. He took to his tulle mats as soon as he
arrived, and it was there that he coughed for the first time. His
woman daubed his face as the fever took hold.
The tl'ekwelix whom she brought in to look at her man
used bitterroot medicine to soak the young man's body. When
the fever raged on, and red spots which turned into pustules
34

began to dot the man's face, the tl'ekwelix tried to get the syilx
to drink a bitter tea, but the fever and cough continued.
On the third day the ti 'ekwelix was exhausted, and the
woman was near hysterics, her weeping filling the teepee and
the surrounding area, where a good number of syilx hovered,
both in support for the young couple, and puzzled by the
young man's fever and outbreaks, none of which anyone had
seen in their lives.
The death rattle came when the ti'ekwelix left the
teepee for more medicine, leaving the feverish man and his
exhausted woman alone. She was sleeping but the ti'ekwelix 's
motions as he left stirred her from her sleep gradually. A
strange sound woke her, a sound which sent chills through her
skin. In the low firelight she could barely see her man wrapped
in blankets. The moan came from the wind, or so she thought
at first. But the rattle from across the fire, and the way her
man's body seemed to heave into an impossible arc, made the
young woman sit up. Fearful as she was of the figure which
seemed to bend almost in half, the woman overcame her fear
and screamed for help as she scrambled towards her man.
She heard an awful pop as though he had broken his
back, and then, as others raced into the teepee, they watched
as his throat rattled in a gurgle. It was like watching a twig
unbend. As he breathed out, his body slowly flattened until he
was once more stretched out on the mat.
The gathering of family and friends was enlarged by
those who had heard of the man's strange death, and had come
to support the village in its grief.

****
Horse rode down the gentle slope towards the village.
He had followed the ti'ekwelix 's words, and spent the last
twelve suns alone beneath a waterfall where he regularly
bathed between sweats He was eager to be with his family.
35

Jane lnyallie

Gerry William

The strange woman had appeared to him the previous night
and urged him in soft tones to return home.
Horse's mind was on the woman of his dreams and he
almost didn't notice the body in the stream until his mount
shied away from the water. Startled, Horse left the woman's
words to find himself staring at the body which lay face down
in the stream, its arms and legs moving as though the boy were
swimming. Horse didn't immediately do anything,
respectively waiting for the boy to stand up or to move.
When neither happened, Horse felt the hair on his arms
raise up in the warm air. Smoke spiralled up through the trees.
Horse knew something was not right, and five minutes later he
rode into camp. The first thing he noticed in the distance were
the blankets, They were strewn throughout the camp and
among the pine trees along the ridge. Horse dismounted and
let his cayuse go. A cool breeze stirred the leaves, some of
which fell into the smoldering ashes to create small bonfires
which briefly flamed and then subsided. Horse limped to the
nearest pile of blankets, and noticed the acrid smell of death as
he drew closer. Beneath the blankets lay Wolverine, his eyes
endlessly staring into the overcast sky. His face was ravaged
by marks which Horse had heard the fur traders call small-pox.
Horse felt his feet leave the ground, floating as though
afraid to touch Toom-Tem, Mother Earth. He forced himself to
gather some foliage. Leaning over Wolverine, he closed the
mystic's sightless eyes, letting go of his own grief with the
song which took Wolverine into the world where Coyote
waited for his children. East of the camp the river flowed over
more bodies, also naked as women, children, old men and
warriors had stripped their clothes off in a final frenzy to cool
the bonfires which burned their souls crisp.
Time changes everything but memories, and the
leaving of the Canada Geese, the falling of the leaves will be
with the Okanagans forever.

36

Belinda The Biker

Belinda The Biker lived next door.
When she moved in, it was the third world war.
Her stereo blasted, shaking the walls.
The smell of leather hung in the halls.
People visited all through the night.
Very little movement in broad daylight.
The landlord was summoned early one morning.
"Too much noise; this is your warning!"
Doors were slammed, walls were knocked.
Down to the floor crashed my good wall clock.
"You have to pay!"
The landlord did say.
Not long after, under cover of day.
Belinda and crew stole away.
On my wall, there is a bare spot.
Belinda The Biker still owes me a clock.

37

Jane Inyallie

ironhorse

they called him
ironhorse
the child
who became
a renegade
he never stayed
in one place
made friends
wherever he went
and travelled
far beyond
anyone he knew
would dare
he had a look
in his eye
kinda lost
kinda sad

Jane Jnyallie

he left for
a long time
called now and then
over the years
one day
he showed up
unexpectedly
he said
home's a good place
to rest
not long after
ironhorse left again
now he travels
among the stars

for Brian

i said
i know you like the taste of drink
are you going to settle down one day?
not to worry
he said
i 'm a solitary guy
i know where i 'm going
and
i do as i please
mother, he said
she's messin' with my mind
38

39

Jane Jnyallie

Jane lnyallie

the forgotten son
I

the forgotten son
stands alone
in a crowd of youth
he searches
the faces
of those around him
looking for
something
that lies
beyond
his reach
he fades
into
arcades
pool halls
all night bars
and corner cafes
the street
becomes
the only home
he knows or wants
he fights
anyone
or anything
that stands
in his way
he boozes
drugs
40

and smokes
until
nothing satisfies
his appetite
not even
the SM girls
who knowingly
travel the night
he roams
the streets
and avenues
snarling
yelling
and screeches
down alleys
into the night
II

the forgotten son
is older now
he's tired
of the highs
and the lows
there's no more
excitement
in the fight
he no longer looks
at the faces
of those around him
he looks
at his reflection
and sees
where
41

Jane Inyallie

he's been
and
he knows
where he's going
tears run
down his
stubbled cheeks
when he realizes
he
IS

his father's
son

Jane lnyallie

the line

most ofus
know
when
we've crossed the line
and
we don't
know
what it's like
until
we've crossed it
if
you can see
the line
it's easier
to get back
the further
away
you go
the harder
it is
to get back
when
you can't see
the line
anymore
you start
to forget
it's
there

42

43

Gordon Bird

Gordon Bird

Terminal Frost 1.

Terminal Frost 2.

puck on ice

floating in the dead sea

first winter in Ontario
first time playing hockey on ice

five Native people decide to float in the dead sea
to hang out and sunbathe
an absolutely beautiful day to float
to float

bunch of local boys
on a frozen pond
hack the puck around
out of bounds
over the snowbank to get it
foot goes through the ice
all the way up to my knee
water so cold
quickly pulled out my foot
told them about the thin ice
just laughed at me
found it funny
laughed along with them
slapped that puck around on the ice

found a good spot to put our blankets
head down to the water's edge
gaze over the water
awe-struck
on the other side of the lake of salt
is the country of Jordan
it felt like we were in heaven
oh in heaven
awesome sight of the landscape
smell of salty air
forever etched into our memories
stepped the rest of the way into the dead sea
amazed at how one floats with such ease
exerting no energy
enjoying the clear blue sky
a mud bath that covers the entire body
dark clay mud baked on the skin by the sun
back to the lake to wash it off
(glorious)
feeling refreshed, revitalized
clean life energy
five native people said good bye to the dead sea

44

45

Gordon Bird

Gordon Bird

Terminal Frost 3.

Terminal Frost 4.

young boy swimmer

alone with myself

young boy swimmer
swims at jone's beach
for about a hour

isolated in this one spot out in the deep woods
overcast weather on the day
hadn't started to rain until an hour ago
alone with myself

young boy swimmer decides
to swim to a friend's home
just down the
shore line a ways
swims closer to the dock
weeds the thick weeds
twine and wrap themselves
around young boy swimmer
more he struggles
more the weeds tighten
around young limbs
hysteria and panic strike
young boy swimmer
has no breath
at that moment he is
submerged under water
looking up from under the water
fights to free himself
thoughts of dying
terrify young boy swimmer
message to "save yourself'
was enough to save his own life
weeds loosen enough
release young boy swimmer
46

no place to live
in a mental mess
had my health at least
alone with myself
decided to run from myself
to have my troubles disappear
if only for a little while
alone with myself
thought about what I should do
the song New Machine
plays in my ears
I have always been here
I have always seen through these eyes
alone with myself
rain turned into a steady down fall
stayed right where I was under the tree
didn't want to leave this safe shelter
alone with myself
carved a cross of all things to do
soothed and complimented this sad feeling
alone with myself

47

Jack D. Forbes

Jack D. Forbes

New Age of Circuses

High-minded romance,
Selling instead our
MINDS and our time
Highest bidder gets them.

Make us laugh
Make us cry
Make us forget that it's a
World of Entertainment
Sensory addictions
Circuses
Overwhelming even our homes
Television's fungus-like
Growth and we are grasped with
Octopusian tentacles of desire.

Because when we
Surrender to being enter-tamed
Addicts, we become slaves,
Pimps to the
Corporations, organizations, and
Politicians who want to
Crap into our
Brain, into our
Emotions, into our reflexes, into our
Deepest private selves

A stream of ice cream cones and
Hot dogs and candy bars
Apples it carries
Laced with glass and strychnine,
Mixed with snot and faeces
Blood and guts, the
Poisons of violence, brutality,
Self-centered narcissism,
Love of filthy lucre layering
Sentimentality and just plain
Sex.
Good it all seems,
Tsunami of
Distractions, of education, of
Armchair travel, of exploring
Nature but its sheer volume
Suffocating to the many
Who cannot say no.
Entertainment's world is not
About goodness though, nor
48

Exposed to every
Imaginable kind of torture,
Murder, rape, watching
Depraved behaviour even by our
Heroes, the cops, the private
Detectives who brutalize people
And make us cheer and
Feel it's normal with the
Selling of sweatshop-made shoes by
Millionaire hoopsters.

I
I
I

I
I
I

Human beings being reduced to the
Ugly banality of the consumer,
Passively fighting
Obesity, their loss of
Authenticity in the couch-potato world
Life's bystander or as a paying
Customer in a work-out room
Desperate to have a
Physical existence.
49

Jack D. Forbes

Immersed in a new
Kind of corporate-fascism
Without armies of black or
Brown-shirted goons since
Television and circus
Pull us into an apolitical
Maze where participation
Means being bamboozled by
Money's lies.
Life for too many of us has become a
Fantasy of pleasure which is
Really pain, a myth of
Being entertained, when we are
Enslaved, really being hypnotized
Until we die of old age,
Lonely in our old people's home, still
Watching TV images flicker before a
Mind already dead!
Un-ending entertainment is a
Social sedative, a
Narcotic worse than cocaine,
Creation of inertial
Indifference to all but the
Shopping mall and the gladiator's
Arena.
Coliseum, mall, boob-tube,
Symbols of a new autocracy,
Demo-Rep one party state
Money is the measure
Of all, and where the celebrated are
Mindless cretins, skinny narcissistic
Models, and actors whose

50

T

Jack D. Forbes

Being is to imitate,
Not to initiate.
Rome the new has found that
Circuses still work,
Circuses and bread but bread
Means now material
Goods, and for that some will
Steal others
Will give up freedom for the
Chance on the lottery of
Life or the sudden plummeting into
Depths of the under
Class, to be forgotten and
Despised in a world where
Politics is only money
Differently spent.
To be entertained
Great it sounds, doesn't it?
But when they've got you
Hooked by your
Eye-balls, or by your ear-drums,
Or by the boredom of an emptied life
Ask yourself what has been lost.
Could it be you?
The you
That might have been?

51

Jack D. Forbes

Picasso's Fall

Picasso
it is told
did not grow
older and wiser
like some Indian Elders
lust
and delusions of wealth
travel
with him
spiralling downward
his quest
is not spiritual
he loses the secret
genms
he once had obscured
by vanity
by jet-set
unrealness
He decays,
it seems,
like an old
rich man
Old men
especially
old rich men
old famous men
must be
careful
in chasing
young women
who is the hunter?
motives are everything,
52

T
I

Jack D. Forbes

and style ...
The prick
of materialism
erect as it can be
in old age
hardened by self
cravmg
illusions of being
numero uno
must fail
in the wreckage
of discarded
lovers
beneath the feet
of desire.
Picasso
grateful are we
for the beauty
for the lessons
driven through you
by the World of Spirit
sad
that you did not
at the last
grasp your own
teaching
But then
in the end
we learn
from
both
your gemus
and, finally,
your humanity!

53

Jack D. Forbes

Jack D. Forbes

Women Made of Earth and Honey

I think a lot about these
maple-syrup coloured girls
About
mountain-honey nut-brown ladies
About
deep, dark molasses women
About
golden-brown-sugar girls
About
red-brown earth coloured ladies
About
rich smelling, soft-hard Mother Earth women
Her same colours
all browns and reds
and blacks.
Giving thanks to Our Creator
for making
so many kinds of women-folk
different shades of brown
and shapes and sizes
smelling of sage and pine and wild grasses
Just to satisfy
my mind.
Brown wood-toned women
suffering
strong
surviving
With little children around them
bringing forth
the generations
Our lives passing through
their
bodies.
I can't speak of all women
but these women I know
Indian
Black
Mexican and more
54

Bending under heavy loads but standing strong
these last
four hundred years
going on still this day
lasting and loving
nurturing
In calm fierceness
making elbow-room
for hope
With soft flesh hard as steel.
Native women
thousands strong
With beautiful hearts
in old cars chugging
kids piled high
crowded homes and migrant camps
no money
Helping kinfolk
nursing men and children
beaten-down
Warriors and mothers
hard and soft
strong and gentle
singing and laughing
with sidelong glances at constant pain.
We shall sing a song
for these women
the Mockingbird does
the Meadowlark
and wild canary
the wind and I
to caress
honour
and respect
Our hard as iron
soft as rabbit's fur
women-folk
Caught in a storm
they gather the children
around them
keep us all warm.

55

Jack D. Forbes

Jack D. Forbes

It don't matter where I go

like their sisters
earth-coloured
strong
mean and mellow
calling ancient spirits
with hoodoo eyes
un-named candomble.

there's something
about
these Earth-Coloured women
Special I mean
is it the eyes
the way they look at you?
They like men

Even blind
no matter how bad we treat them
still liking us
ready to try
after every disappointment
to take us in again
bits of themselves given freely
If we give something back
they grow stronger
And so do we.

Something special
I tell you
about these Indian girls
dancing proud
singing high nasal style
holding babies in their arms
natural noble ladies
dignified
shy and bold
unafraid
self-confident
standing tall
Unless we men help to saw them down.

one can see
these our earth-coloured women
desecrated
denigrated
denied
defamed
Taught to boogie away the pain
'suited and 'slaved to whoring
boozed and abused
Still with style
but all the while
being destroyed
like jewels ground up
making dust storms
coating men's lungs
with asbestos fibres
of finely-shattered
obsidian and jade
Bits of women
that coughing cannot spit out
shame
and
tears.

And Red-Black girls
Mother America
Mother Africa
thrust together by slaver's boats
and raiders' guns
making powerful trans-oceanic magic
from Brazil to Massachusetts

Natural
unaffected
un-sophistry-cated
girls from down the country roads
old ways in them still
Around us

And Black girls
of many tribes and roots
forged together
anvil-hardened
56

making wholeness
mus
curing
healing
57

Jack D. Forbes

Jack D. Forbes

with magic of honey and herbs
Medicine-women passing on powers
soul to
soul
a hand on your arm
or touching your hair
a song
a smile.

Looking into your own being
Your own mirror
You see a true reflectionHow beautiful you really are!
Oppressor's mirrors
like fun-house glass
only distorts and warpsdo not look there for images!

Tough at twelve

With the mirror of my gut and being
exaltation you will see
Exalting high
these brown and black girls
putting them elevated on a sacred hill
giving them regal titles
for all of the contests
they've won
though no one wanted them
to enter
but kept out
they still win
hands-down
anyway.

women at sixteen
girls still at fifty
Carrying us all on their backs
laughing and easy while
serious and stubborn
Loving love
moving in unison with their bodies
unashamed of female natures
juicy and sweet, not dry and sour
deep feelings nurtured, not crushed
many-dimensioned women,
not cold and calculating minds
Sharing the universal pain
dancing the dance
that leads
to our healing.

Third World women-folk
growing up in the back
of a fast-moving
pick-up truck
out in the rain
all wet and cold,
hungry
still with love to give
calm
with a song
they nurture
rebound
findjoy
where others find only
misery and
self-pity.

Undulating sensuous bodies
restrained two-step forms
Dancing to different music
but dancing still
Dancing right on through
these four hundred years
these twenty generations
of hostile glances
hateful looks
crocodile smiles
rocks and guns
"So sorry, we just hired someone"
"So sorry, we just rented our last apartmentjust forgot about the sign"
of a scowl mouth smiling.
58

Surely you have won
every reward
a man
59

Rosemary White Shield

Jack D. Forbes
can give.

Burying My Mother

of Changing Woman
of Kwan-Yin
of Isis
ofOxum
of White Buffalo-Calf Woman

Death sits on my doorstep
Knows me
Passes a greeting
My heart does not understand.

Daughters of Yemanha

Your browness is a visible sign
of the sweet honey
and enduring earth
from which
You have been formed
and of your nature,
which is Sacred.

Death sits on the edge
Of the living,
Peeling off the skin
Of the wind,
Until it sounds hollow,
Emptied of its shells.
Hollow like the swift air
Rushing through
The veins of the Badlands
At night when the ancient voices
Rise against human ears.
It remembers the veins of the day too,
Emptying them
Off their bloodSilent veins of days
Lying on the earthen floor,
Rattling in the hollow wind, trembling
Before the darkest sunrise.

60

61

ii

Rosemary White Shield

My Answer to the Professor
Who Said I Should Write More Like a Man to Be Any Good

When I write
I can breathe
out dreams
inside my skin.
They flow out of my lips
like sounds of love on the tongue
disappearing into thin air

Rosemary White Shield

On Trying to Make Chit Chat at Dinner

Tell me, he says
of your heart's desire
I will give it to you.
I want what you
cannot give me
I say.
How do I explain home?

appearing again on the paper,
delicately arranged flowers
slowly coming into view
at the first hint of my sunrise.

The home I find
in slits, cracks, slivers
of light between
the teeth of the day

Touching the new light of day.
Softly moving through
the lines of our doors
we keep so closed.

where God meets me
walks my inner earth
listens to my stones inside me
touches those small rock creviced places,

As if we could stop creation
of all these things in our lives
instead of painting their voices
their words, under our blood,
listening to their smoky whispers
caressing our bones,
dancing with all their powers
in the open sky.

turning my heart
into a blazing red sun
burning the sky
burning the world
burning into eternity.

62

63

Rosemary White Shield

t

Rosemary White Shield

Zuya Wiyan

Nagi Zuya Mani

I grow old in the dark
Ancient, like the spiralling winds
On Hambleceya

I am home here, in the place
Where the spirits bring the new day,
The small circle of blazing fire
Calling

In the darkness
Of a hollow room
Standing in the sun
Against city traffic
Against people running
The wrong way
Saying the Earth is flat,
I see those haunting eyes
Within me my demon
Does not whisper my name
He roars
Tearing my heart
Into shredded meat
Before dawn.

Us to live, to place our lips
On the curved brightness
With all the passion
Of each everlasting breath,
Calling us to touch
The bones of God,
To touch the fingertips
Of Tunkasila.

I am lost, unable to walk
Tired of knowing darkness in the trees
Facing yellow eyes.
This moment I am aloneIt helps to have company
When you sit in black nests.
To see what your own
Demons have to teach you.

I long for the unseen
To go into the Hills of the Forgotten
Watch the prairie flow beneath my eyes.
Only people make me lonely.

I
I
I

I
I

I

I

I
64

1

The problem is
You must meet them, speak
Their language
Or the language of God;
They know both. But the tongue
You use must be your own.
You must choose
To sit with yellow pain
When no one else notices
65

James Colbert

Rosemary White Shield

Too busy they are
Falling off the edge of the Earth.

Thrown Away

I had become arrogant,
Thinking my own demon battles
Were victories, disappearing
Into the summer sun, bent
And faded like a warm sword.

As soon as they had finished loading the trucks, the
new staff sergeant yelled: "Flak jackets and helmets. Get 'em
on. This is still Indian country." And although the heat was a
suffocating presence, a humid oven, they put their five-pound
helmets back on and their half-inch thick flak jackets, too.
Joseph noted the muck on his boots, dried now and flaking like
very old paint. He felt the sweat rolling off him. Earlier, he had
smashed his thumb, and it hurt. All Joseph wanted-all any of
them wanted-was to get on a truck and to get moving, to
catch a little bit of breeze.
The order came to saddle up, and they did, collecting
their gear and scrambling onto the waiting deuce and a halfs,
not talking much, too hot and too tired even for grab-ass. The
more ambitious among them moved a few cases of the Crations they had loaded and made places to sit; the others just
plopped down wherever they could. The short convoy turned
east out of the compound, toward the larger road that would
carry them north. As it happened, Joseph had jumped into the
truck that had taken the lead-if it had been after dark, he
would have been ordered into it, anyway, since the staff
sergeant believed he could see in the dark.
"I'm mixed-blood, not full-blood," Joseph had
protested, not wanting more than his share of guard duty and
time out on point.
"Do the math, Private," the staff sergeant had
countered. "If you see only half as good as a regular Indian,
you can still see twice as good as these other guys." He made
a gesture that took in the marines all around them.
Joseph could not believe such stupidity. It was simply
too ludicrous. Joseph had thought about putting in for a
transfer-he had thought of other things, too-but had
concluded that his time was so short that the most direct route
was just to get through-the means to which altered then, too:

And now, my demon hisses
Asking me about metal,
About sunlight,
if I still see Beauty in all things.
I answer
the darkness does not own me
Although I have come to know
Its language, the names of its birds
Flying in the silent wind
Yet, God is near,
And you are here to remind me
Only That the Earth is round.

66

67

James Colbert

Joseph had seen very clearly every single man in his squad
busily looking away.
For a few minutes they bumped along, sweat drying,
thankful for the twenty-mile-per-hour breeze. Then, just
before they turned onto the north-south road, the truck slowed
to a crawl. One by one they stood up to see what was the
matter. Most every one of them made a comment; every
comment made was foul-mouthed.
The ragged column of refugees stretched out of sight.
The driver didn't bother to honk-there were just too many to
move with a horn. They took up the whole road and then some.
The lucky ones were packed into carts that ranged from
primitive to prehistoric. An old woman rode in a makeshift
farm wagon, an injured child on a crude sled. Most simply
walked, their eyes dull and fixed straight ahead. Away to the
north was the sound of an ongoing aerial bombardment.
"Well," DJ said, taking out his well-honed Ka-Bar and
slashing open a carton of C-rats, "we might as well make the
best of it." He dug around until he found a can of cake and
another of peaches; but no sooner had he put the cans on the
roof of the cab and started to open them than kids began to
appear.
"Hey! Hey, GI Joe!" an older boy yelled, and banged
against the side of the truck. "Hey!"
"Hey what, you little fuck?" the squad leader snapped
in reply. He was tall and lean with long, ropey muscles and a
country boy's hands with big knuckles. If the boy saw the
squad leader's M-16 swing in an arc that included him, he
wasn't put off by it.
DJ took out a pilfered mess-hall spoon and began to eat
his cake and peaches, smacking his lips with obvious
enjoyment.
The squad leader slung his rifle across his back and
tore at the case of C-rations DJ had cut open. He stood up with
four olive-green cans, three in one hand and one in the other.
He flipped the single can in the air, up and down, hefting it

68

James Colbert

between the short tosses, weighing it. By now more kids had
come; they walked beside the slow-moving truck, waving,
shouting, holding their hands out for food. The truck stopped
for a moment, the driver irritably sounded the horn, the kids
pushed into a bunch, and the squad leader wound up and
threw.
The heavy can caught the boy over the eye, and he
crumpled right where he stood, collapsing as if his strings had
been cut all at once.
The younger kids laughed and scrambled after the can
as it ricocheted. Two smaller boys pushed a taller one forward
as a shield. Others got so excited they tried to climb over each
other's backs. The squad leader stretched his lips into a thin,
hard expression, looked around at the men, then threw again.
For a moment, no one in the truck moved. DJ even
stopped eating. Joseph watched warily. Then, as if on signal,
blades flashed, and very nearly every one of them tore into the
cases of C-rations and the smaller boxes inside. They ripped
out the cans and started throwing them, fruit cocktail, peaches,
lima beans, meats of all sorts.
The cans flew flat and hard.
The kids who were hit solidly dropped like the first
one, but the others kept coming even after their giggling and
laughing stopped. Some limped from a hit in the leg; others
cradled an arm or a hand. A young girl stood feeling her
teeth-a second can missed her by inches.
What impressed Joseph most was the calm and quiet,
the orderliness of it. There were grunts of exertion as the men
in the truck loosened up and threw harder. There were thuds
and thumps and ugly, wet, soft-tissue sounds as the cans
struck, but the children seemed afraid to make any sound and
any sound they did make they muffled. Joseph didn't care to
join in, but he didn't object to it, either-it just wasn't what he
would call fun. Idly, he reached into an open case and pulled
out a can, but, because he just sat there with it, it was grabbed
from his hand. So he watched, and as he did so he wondered
69

James Colbert

when his feelings about refugees had evolved to such passive
indifference. It still irritated him that they so often got in the
way. He still found them ·pathetic and resented the many
problems they created. That they were outsiders in their own
country should, it seemed to him, create some sympathy, but it
didn't-not even when he recalled those hand-lettered signs in
Oklahoma that read, "No Injuns"; not even when he replayed
the conversation with the staff sergeant and caught the wink
that had passed between him and his favourite corporal. The
refugees had become all but invisible-his feelings for them
as insubstantial as ghosts.
Suddenly, a single shot cracked, and the men throwing
froze; the kids still clamoured after the cans.
Likely, it was all the time he had spent on point and on
the perimeter at night, but Joseph had his rifle shouldered and
sighted at the sound even before the whole sound had passed.
There was a slight snick as he pushed off the safety.
"Cut that silly shit out," the staff sergeant yelled
angrily from the truck right behind them. Then he locked eyes
with Joseph who was looking calmly at him down the barrel
of his M-16 stubby. The staff sergeant's voice cracked just a
little when he added, "We need those supplies for ourselves."
The men in the truck sat down again, two or three
looking a little sheepish. Joseph leaned back on a single, low
C~ration case, knees higher than butt, arms over knees, rifle
cradled snugly between hands and feet. He examined his
thumb, which felt worse than it looked. His arms, he saw, were
tanned. They had the same bronzed, coppery-red colour he had
always admired on his grandfather, a colour on the old man
unaffected by exposure to the sun. His grandfather was dead
now, but, as always, it was that unique colour that Joseph
thought of when he defined for himself the primary difference
between the pure and the mixedblood, the colour and whether
or not it had to be renewed by the sun, the colour and who
walked and who rode the trails marked by tears, the colour that
let him step across borders as if he could see in the dark.
70

Janet Rogers

Magic Carpets
Three in one
Three in one
Three in one
She worked
The rags
Into braids
That laid
As carpet
Beneath our feet
One by one
One by one
She ripped
by hand
Colourful bands
Sewn into one
Her gifts
Of love
Bigger
Bigger still
A ball
Of braid
Would appear
Like magic
Attaching
To canvas
Thread knotted
Fingers twisted
Whistling while
She worked
Songs of
The old country

Covering, covering
Cold floors
Spreading, spreading
She made more
Multi-coloured
Surfaces of braids
Easing steps
Her time
She paid
Braided flooring
Telling stories
Ofa
Worker
A woman
A queen
Her legacies
Still cushion
Our steps
Though thin
And old
We have kept
Her braids
Another day
She is done ...
Three into one
Three into one
Three into one

71

Janet Rogers

Janet Rogers

No Reservation

I know my brothers and sisters by the way we feel.
The enemy can look similar, so trust your ancient instincts

I am an Indian, without reservation
Without memory of a land
Where my ancestors lie sleeping
My blood does not show traces
Of the crops raised there
And my accent does not say
I am part of that tribe.

There is an indescribable joy
In returning to a land, meant for you by blood
I embrace all that it is
For this ... I have no reservation

No, I was born and raised
Away from them, away from there.
Our sufferings, the same
Our lessons, equal
I look to them, who have remained
Part of that territory
And see a mirror image looking back
I learn from them, and they from me
I need their past to know me more
A fresh breath is breathed into the language, the culture
As I ask and inquire
Of a way of life, in jeopardy of death
No, my upbringing does not recall
Kidnapping to institutions
Of sadness of a language lost, I never had.
And I share all the same
The skin I walk in, and brown black eyes
That house ancient secrets unrevealed even to me.

''
:,;
I

An Indian is an Indian, is an Indian
We are the true travellers of more than one world
Your journey is my journey, and mine is yours
This we share, in this granule of time
72

73

Kim Shuck

Kim Shuck

Because the Feet of Four Indian Women Might Change
the Weather on the East Coast
For any of the Indian
kids I know who went
off to Harvard and found it a cold
place.

Dancing on this slightly uneven ground,
We circle with the fire always on our right.
Our feet are the accurate feet
Of southern style traditional dancers.
We place them very carefully
Each time we take
Small steps
To the music.
We are pink and blue and green and dark brown.
Our hair is braided
And decorated
According to individual equations.
Nothing is left to chance.

Some Things I Know About Love that Might be of Some Use

1.
I cannot take a handful ofdirt from my backyard without seeing a woman.
She has a crooked left eyetooth, solid hips and thighs
And hair that reaches to her knees.
When she tips her head back she can feel her hair
Caressing her calves, the small of her back.
I can see her gathering cress here
Some four hundred years ago.
I have to wonder with each handful of dirt
What part of this dirt contains her hair?
As I plant my squash
I am grateful
That she cares for me in this way.
2.

I have heard the old women say
We are connected by the
Drum.
The fringes on our shawls shift
In exact patterns
They describe the movement
Of turbulent water or
The stars.
Our feet hold a message too.
They say:
We are proud
Proud
Proud
Proud of you.
74

That the children look like the parent
Who had the most fun making them.
I wonder at the curl in my hair
And my grandmother's story of the escaped slave
Taken in
And loved so intensely
By her great-grandmother
That the erotic aftershock
Curls the hair of one member of the family
Per generation
Ever since.

75

Kim Shuck

3.
Sometimes I see a flash of gold brown light
In someone's eye.
And I smell the flooded pecan grove
Near grandma's house.
I wonder if this is what it is for salmon
Swimming upstream.
Some small taste of the familiar
That sets their sense of direction.
And I think about my father
With a shiver for the bravery
Of trusting someone else's sense of direction.

4.

Kim Shuck

Home Songs

1.

Always consider the possibility that you take yourself too seriously.
2.
That dry cleaner is built
On the most sacred spot
In four counties.
It was not intended as an act of irreverence.
They didn't ask and we
Were too embarrassed for them
To say.

Some things are more important than the time they take.
5.
This scrubby grey mint
Was snatched from death
On a hot day near Petaluma.
It rode in a wet tissue
All the way to San Francisco.
And despite only having had
Half an inch of root
It flourishes.

Yeah, sometimes I get angry.
Most often when
I can't find any dirty laundry
So I can go pray.
3.
Just 'cause you don't know the stories,
Doesn't mean there aren't any.
4.
It's been ten years since I was home, but
Jake doesn't even look up from the paper
As I enter his store.
"Your Gram is out of flour.
You want tea you have to buy it.
Milk's probably soured."

76

77

Kim Shuck

I love you too old man.
5.
Humour and food are the trickiest
Of cultural artifacts,
But overlaps do occur.
My Polish and Tsalagi relatives
Sat down one evening and enjoyed
Potato pancakes together.
And then there was the afternoon
Of near delirium:
28 Elderly Indians
Listening to Seuss in translation.

7

Larry Nicholson

Residing Poem

I
808 SPILLER ROAD S. E. (1997)

up early
cold cereal with Canada AM
or cartoons
the screen door slams,
as the schoolyard awaits
grey skies
over stockyards down the street
carry the stench
of fermenting malt and slaughter
two blocks away
a train blares its approach
but nobody wakes
or hears anything out of the ordinary
at the bus stop
Jimmy the Lush lies fetal
and waits for his ride to the tank,
or heaven,
whichever comes first
and not that he'd know the difference
I am the only Indian boy I know
and invisible
to old men with bulbous noses
who hold up crumpled newspapers
to hide the evidence
of another failure,
ragged and dishevelled men

78

79

Larry Nicholson

Larry Nicholson

trying to forget
a lifetime on the sly
the winds of change don't blow here,
they just laugh and spread the smell
II
RESERVATION #341 (1990)

imperceptibly,
night descends over twilight
as the rise and slope
of this country
meet somewhere beyond
the dark blue and black
calm, humid air hints of promise
my senses are piqued
by warm tea
and the life teeming
in the meadow behind this,
my uncle's house,
a breath of wind
delivers the scent of horses
and sweet blades bending there
like the people who live here,
fireflies hover and dart without pattern
their bodies brilliant
points of illumination

promised land
my name is nothing
my age means less
i come from all countries
where there are no boundaries
no judgements
only clarity and stillness
broken by a squeal of delight
as she learns how to squeeze my hand

t
I,

}.,,

I:

1'

from us come her first words
old words with ancient meanings
we search for those meanings
unconcerned with success or failure

l
l

1

we accept our station
without question or destination
all places are young
and the wind never blows cold
in her mother's arms
at times
is all the beauty i can take
sleeping well in the knowledge
that we are safe
i am home

in other field,
a young girl holding a jar snares one
and watches as the fly struggles to breathe
she walks away bored
as light from the body fades
then disappears
80

81

J

Larry Nicholson

Larry Nicholson

Steal My Thunder

coyote dreamz & rocks

I listened
as right before she hung up,
she said "I love you,
and don't ever come back."

met her over there,
eye suppoze?

Damn!

whut happind?

That was my last quarter, too.

said he dream' d
abowt coyote
and rocks

cha.

what kind of rocks?
oh, the blue ones and red ones
and maybee one night yell-oh
he thinkx
so now where is
our neffew?
bye the river
ficksing a fireyou know
he ses she's sen-say-shun-al!
and she frah-lix
like nobuddy's bizness,
izzat right?
and he alreddy lit the rocks
the blue and red ones,
prob'ly even the yellow

82

83

Leanne Flett Kruger

Larry Nicholson

betch it's got
sumthing to even seez colours in the dark, him
c'mon, better get,
help'em ticks that swet
still,
it's sumthing
to wonder abowt
you know what they say,
after coyote dreamz
nuthings ever the same

Identity Crisis
Part I

from your grandparents
You are an Indian
from an Indian
You are not Indian
from a Metis
Metis are Indian
from a Halfbreed
Metis are not Indians

cha
cha

from an Aboriginal
You are White
from a Caucasian
You are not White
from a Non-Status Indian
You are of Aboriginal Status
from a Status Indian
You are not Status
from a North American
You are Canadian
from an Elder
You are not Canadian
from a Nish cousin
You are Native

84

85

Leanne Flett Kruger

Leanne Flett Kruger

from a White cousin
You are not Native

I Know Who I Am
Part II

from yourself
You are?
You are not?
... ?

from my grandmother
who spoke of the Seven Fires
spoke her own language
of coming together as a nation
to feast to talk to pray
from my grandmother who told me
I am an Indian
from an Indian Warrior Woman
who I made arrangements to interview
over the phone seemed welcome
to meet a Cree/Anishinaabe/Metis
but at the meeting her smile dropped
and breath stilled
at the shake of my hand
seemingly unnerved by my fair skin
or perhaps my blue/grey eyes
she recoiled in avoidance
not sharing her warrior stories for my interview
in her own way she told me
you are not an Indian
from a Metis dancer dressed with sash and beads
beaming joy at the indoor pow-wow
who danced his grandfather's heritage
danced his mother's pride
from the Metis dancer defending his beliefs
who laughed at me and claimed
you are an Indian you are Metis

1

l
l'
t

I
,'

l

from the white racist
sitting in the greasy spoon
itching for a bone to pick
86

87

:i
i

Leanne Flett Kruger

descends upon me and my Uncle
"listen up you lazy lot
the past is over so quit your complaining
you otta' pay taxes like the rest of us"
from this misanthropic man
"You're not White, You're a no good Indian"
snow white in winter, I could easily mix, mingle and meld my
way into the mainstream, walk in the White world and I would
never have to debate or ponder it again. except that I tried, I
tried to assimilate my ass right into their houses and
relationships and offices but I just couldn't breathe the stale air
or laugh at the foreign jokes or settle into the form and
thinking that creates people like that, people that I never fit in
with no matter how good my acting or how much I bit my
tongue and nodded my head and smiled and pretended to agree
or understand, I just did not belong

~
I
I

I
I

I
I

I
I

Leanne Flett Kruger

baking bannock does not make you an Indian
diluted blood does not make you White
from my grandmother
who told me
you are Indian
from my grandmother
who told me
in her own language
of seven fires
who told me
of a revolution
who told me
things are going to get worse before they get better
lest we come together as a nation
to feast and talk and pray
from my grandmother in her wisdom
I know who I am

back where it's brown and I understand the thinking because
that's where I come from, back with the skins of my same skin,
of my roots, where it smells like home and I can breath the
thick delicious air, I get accused of not being Enough, not the
same and any faults I may have are always reflected back to
my being too White.
where am I supposed to go?
what if I die and go to White heaven
will I have to eternally sit on the sidelines alone
where will all my ancestors be?
what if I die and my spirit turns
into a wolf and I finally fit into a place of unity
will I still get to say goodbye to my mom?
I am tired of comparing knowledge
I am tired of dissecting the family tree
88

89

William George

William George

Mountain Bedded Rock

My Pledge

Along the Stanley Park seawall, I stroll this spring morning,
From across the Burrard Inlet, I etch myself out of the
mountainside.
My image is captured there once,
Every line through the contours of the Grouse Mountain.

I pledge allegiance to this here collective,
We who live and breathe Indigenous rhythm.
And the dream voices echo our prayer hymn,
To harmonize with life forces is not selective.
For we are responsible to be protective,
Ever strive to nurture others, her and him.
For us to breathe life into words is no whim.
We walk-speak a language demonstrative.

I can argue that we are rock.
We always have been.
Composed of earth and minerals,
The Creator made us out of stone and dirt.
I forget that I am rock.
And when the mountain slides to the ocean,
That is not my concern.

For witnesses, my honour and respect do I pledge.
I am a writer standing here sharing with the universe.
I speak the words that move powerful through me,
With my pen to the page, my words cut the edge.
I challenge the form prose, script, poetry, even verse.
The words' rhythm is my expression that I set free.

r

'

1

I pull myself away from my place here,
Even denying that the world shaking
And falling apart has anything to do with me.

f

i

I

},

',,

I

In the blue green of this world,
Sing and pray with me
As we re-create ourselves in the mountain.

f

I
I

I stand here on the seawall,
With the wind blowing in from the ocean,
I know that the foundation of who we are
and why we are here is that you and I,
We are mountain bedded rock.

90

91

William George

Margaret Orr

Sockeye Salmon Dream

Life Line

sockeye salmon dream
seeps into my bones flesh
the west coast rain sings

I hold Mother gently as she draws in her last breaths. They are
slow and quiet, faint against the soft rippling waves of the
stream that runs beside us. We have lived here for many years
and now I feel her life slipping away as I watch her dry lips
tremble with every thought that goes through her mind. Her
head, nestled on my lap, dangles silken grey and white strands
of hair onto cool green grass leading down to the stream. Her
quiet words ripple:
"Take me to water
running over land.
Take and put me so my feet feel
gentle tickling rushes of wetness.
Hold my hand and place it
just under the folding surface
to feel the rocks that mold
the beauty of the stream.
I want to feel the tumble
of thirst quenching sweetness
flowing over land alongside
evergreens and red willows.
Take my body and place it
gently into the water
so that I may course
along the same path.
I want the streams to carry me
to big river currents
that plunge mightily
into James Bay."

92

93

Margaret Orr

If I could, I would tum myself into a stream and safely carry
Mother's silent body to the quiet bed of salt water. But I can
only follow alongside the gentle rush of the stream while
songs of tree sparrows sing gracefully in rhythm to her
journey. Bull rushes give way to boulders as the stream
becomes a river. Mighty flooding folds of water cascade over
land. Rapids drown the songs of trees sparrows. Only at pools
and broad river beds do I hear their sweet songs as the river
volume rises and falls. The white brown blue green torrents of
water rush out of the river's mouth. The pace lessens. The roar
diminishes. Song sparrows' words fade into seagulls' cries.
The stream has come to rest in James Bay's lulling cradle of
salt water. White grey seagulls swoop down to catch a glimpse
of themselves, occasionally penetrating the mirror of wet
glass, buoyed by the silent body of water. The glass cracks
momentarily as seagulls' eyes guide their beaks to their prey.
Minnows are scooped up by sharp beaks, swallowed whole
and slide down slippery throats to energize sinewy muscles.
Sinewy muscles made strong by traveling morning skies,
which after a storm is wrapped in a sky blanket of brilliant
light yellow with a hint of pink. It is here where mother comes
to rest.

11
I

I
I

I
I

I
I
I

Margaret Orr

Breasts once full
of life-giving milk
now fold in wrinkles
from her chest.

r:

i'

Lips that once
kissed pain better
no longer breathe
the fresh scent of
pink Twin Flowers growing
under giant spruce trees
that dance along
the shores of James Bay.

In a casket of water
she silently floats with
pale yellow flowers
cradled in her hands.
Blankets of waves splash
gently against her frail body
as slow currents swirl
her grey white hair
in gentle strands
about her head.

94

95

__,....--Margaret Orr

Green Light, Red Light

wide and fast
around the comer of a building
to fall at the feet of a suit
that happens to be going in the same direction
you are but in a different way
you scramble to the hot dog stand
by the bus stop a woman stands
with her head stooped over her purse
she reaches in and change falls silently
on the grass by the garbage
where you always reach down
hard and fast over to food
before he changes his mind not to accept
the little change that shows what you have
been through ever since
you came to the city
from your reservation home
to watch street lights change colour
while neon lights flicker
and reflect the same stars
somewhere in the recesses
of your memory

7
I
I
I
I

Margaret Orr
i

!

Trophy Room

Look at me

don't just pick me up blindly 'cause
my face has been burnt by the sun
real close.

Hold me and
t.
I
!
I'

though my breasts sag from
milk gone dry
turn me around for a long time.

i .

Run your hands down

and my legs show veins that have
popped out from the weight of my children
my spine and my thighs.

Stroke my wrists and

my feet are too big like the
base of a trophy with
skinny ankles.

96

97

Margaret Orr

Turn me over and

scars of survival mark
my hands and my back
read what I am made of

Keep me off the shelf

ignore all the wear and tear that hides
the tenderness that created me
to wrap in warm reds and yellow.

t

Troy Hunter

Geronimo's Grave

On that dreadful labour day weekend, just a few weeks ago, I
got out of the cool air-conditioned car into the hot dry air of
Fort Sill, Oklahoma.

,J
1
i

i'

As I walked down the path of the Indian Cemetery-prisoners
of war of a hundred years before-I thought about the story
my little butterfly told me, about the time they visited
Geronimo's grave, about the incident where her step-dad had
to kill a poisonous snake with a cross because it was after the
children.
The grave with two huge juniper trees stood like sentinels-a
door to the spirit world. I saw bandanas tied to the boughs of
the great ones. There were also offerings in memory of
deceased relations. A baby's soother hung still in the desertlike heat.
I pulled from my pocket the purple, blue and pink silk scarf
that was once a gift from me to the mother of my daughter. It
was my daughter's most cherished possession after her mother
had given it to her.
I tied that beautiful scarf to the tree and tears rolled down my
cheeks as I prayed. Then I walked away from Geronimo's
grave and let go of her spirit.
In her loving and prayerful way, she was a great warrior.
She is now our eldest sister.

98

I

99

I,

r !
r,

!!

!

.I
!
t

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1 I

Troy Hunter

Vera Manuel

White Picket Fences

Abused Mothers Wounded Fathers

In town the houses boxed in
with their tiny little boards
neatly nailed together.
Rows upon rows of streets, and homes.
Green grassy lawns, paved driveways and two-car garages.

1 kept my mother and father
longer than most Indians my age.
I was 41 when she died
and 42 when he drifted away.

Out on the Indian Reservation,
A dilapidated residential school,
cemetery and old church,
The dry cracked paint, so brittle it falls.
Only the dust blows freely in the wind.
A space, a plot, a garden, a yard,
All closed in, suffocating,
Eroding the freedom.
The white picket fence stands tall.

Yet sometimes
I despair
how I'd wasted all that time
I never got to know them
until long after they'd gone.
Even from a distance
I think I always knew my mother loved me,
but I used to wonder about my dad,
being as close to him as I was
it was hard to tell.
It must have been hard on them,
how I stay away,
kept all shut up inside,
never married
never gave them grandbabies
to redeem themselves on.
I heard dad tell it once
that he figured it was his fault
how I grew to mistrust the world.
It makes me ache inside
to think about it.
Sometimes I wake
in the middle of the night
and I tell them
things I never told them in life.

100

101

Linda LeGarde Grover

Vera Manuel

It's easier for me to talk to them
when they can't answer back.

Anishinaabikwe-Everywoman

Mom and dad grew up in residential school.
There wasn't much love in those places.

While he Inini
Indian man who seeks the Great Spirit
looks longingly out the window
past the birds and trees
into his own mind
long hair hiding his back

When I lie very still,
close my eyes
I picture them
as children,
five and six years old.
I take them up into my arms,
hold them tightly,
rock them gently,
kiss them
all over their faces,
the way babies ought to be kissed,
because I know there was no one
to do that for them
back then.
It's somehow soothing to me.

102

II ,i

lfkwe

Indian woman so close to Mother Earth
protect him from this cruel and mundane life
with hard work
courage
and love
my strengths
while my feet never leave the ground.
My quest never began,
and his will never end.

103

Linda LeGarde Grover

Linda leGarde Grover

Chi-Ko-ko-koho and the Boarding School Prefect, 1934

From my owl's nest home, unsteady greasy oak
covered by cowhide long oblivious
to claws tough and curving as old tree roots
I breathe the night breeze, starry broken glass.
I am Chi-Ko-ko-koho. My black-centered
unblinking owl eyes see past the dark
growl of this old bear den of a bar,
through stinging fog of unintended
blasphemy, tobacco's tarry prayers
stuck and dusty on a hammered tin ceiling,
to grieving spirits mirrored by my own.
I am Chi-Ko-ko-koho, young among owls
as young among lush crimson blooms of death
is the embryonic seedling in my chest,
the rooting zygote corkscrew in my chest,
these days all but unseen, a pink sea spray
sunset on a thick white coffee cup.
My grieving spirit hardly notices
though, in this old bear den of a bar.
My owl head turns clear round when I see him.
I am Chi-Ko-ko-koho, I blink away
smoke and fog, my head swivels back
and he's still there, the prefect. He's still there.
He's real, not some ghost back to grab my throat
again with those heavy old no-hands of his
or crack my brother's homesick skinny bones
on cold concrete tattooed by miseries
of other Indian boys who crossed his path.

I am Chi-Ko-ko-koho, but who he sees
is Kwiiwizens, a boy bent and kneeling
beneath the prefect's doubled leather strap,
and Kwiiwizens I am. My belly feels
a tiny worm the colour of the moon
writhe in laughter at my cowardice
as that reeking, ruined wreck, the old prefect
step-drags, step-drags his dampened moccasins
to my end of the bar. The flowers weep
above his toes in mourning for us all.

I
I
l

He asks me for a nickel for a beer.
With closed eyes Kwiiwizens waits for the strap.
Chi-Ko-ko-koho dives from his grimy perch
to yank the apparition by the hair,
then flies him past the blind face of the moon
to drop him in the alley back behind
the dark growl of this old bear den of a bar.
Indizhinikaaz K wiiwizens,
gaye indizhinikaaz Chi-Ko-ko-koho.
Ni maajaa. Mi-iw. I leave him there.

I am Chi-Ko-ko-koho. I leave him there
under stars of broken glass. I leave him there.

To the darkness of this bear den of a bar
he's brought his own sad spirit for a drink.
104

105

Linda LeGarde Grover

Grandmother at Mission School

Left on smooth wooden steps to think
about disobedience, and forgetfulness
she feels warm sun on the back of her neck
as she kneels on the pale spot worn
by other little girls' tender sore knees,
a hundred black wool stockings
grinding skin and stairs,
beneath one knee a hard white navy bean.

Linda LeGarde Grover

"Bizaan, gego mawi ken, don't cry"
She moves her knee so the little bean
would feel just the soft part, and not the bone
how long can I stay here?
and when Sister returns to ask if she's thought
she says yes,
I won't talk like a pagan again
and she stands and picks up the little bean
and carries it in her lonesome lying hand
until it's lights out
when the baby bean
sleeps under her pillow.

Small distant lightening flickers
pale flashes down her shins, felt by other
uniformed girls marching to sewing class
waiting for their own inevitable return
to the stair, to think and remember what happens
to girls who speak a pagan tongue.
Try to forget this pagan tongue.
Disobedient and forgetful she almost hears
beyond the schoolyard
beyond the train ride
beyond little girls crying in their small white beds
her mama far away
singing to herself as she cooks
and speaking quietly to Grandma as they sew
the quilt for Mama's new baby
and laughing with her sisters
as they wash clothes
the little bean
did it hurt?

106

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I.
Linda LeGarde Grover

Linda LeGarde Grover

To the Woman Who Just Bought
That Set of Native American Spirituality
Dream Interpretation Cards

or rent it if you want, go ahead
what do I care
acquire what you will,
you've done it before.

Sister, listen carefully to this.

1 know what you're looking for
and I know I'm not it. Hell, no
I won't be dressing up or dancing for you
or selling you a ceremony
that women around these parts never heard of.
I won't tell your fortune
or interpret your dreams
so put away your money. Hell,
what you really want to buy
you'll never see, and anyway
it's not for sale.

You'll probably go right past me
when you're looking
for a real gen-yew-whine
Indian princess
to flagellate you a little
and feed your self-indulgent
un-guilt
about what other people
not as fine-tuned and sensitive as you
did to women
by the way, women like me
who you probably go right past
when you 're looking.
I know what you're looking for
and I know I'm not it.
You're looking for that other
Indian woman, you want
for a real gen-yew-whine
oshki-traditional princess
and you'll know her when you see her
glibly glinting silver and turquoise
carrying around her own little
magic shop of real gen-yew-whine
rattling beads and jangling charms
beaming about her moon
as she sells you a ticket to her sweat lodge.
She's a spiritual concession stand
and it's your own business, go ahead and buy
108

Sister, you weren't listening to this
I know, and I know too that
that authentic, guaranteed
satisfaction or your money back
gen-yew-whine for real
oshki-traditional Indian princess
is easy to find. Bring your cheque book.
Or a major credit card.
I'll be watching you both.

109

Linda LeGarde Grover

Laura A. Marsden

Winona Conceives the Trickster

Dispelling the Myth of STONEFACE

As a young girl, Nokomis was envied by the stars, who tricked
her into falling to earth from her home and mother, the moon.
She gave birth to a daughter, Winona, who she loved deeply
and sheltered carefully. Winona strayedfrom her mother while
they were out picking potatoes. She was captured in a
whirlwind by the North Wind, and became pregnant. Nokomis
grieved terribly when the innocent girl died giving birth to
Nanaboozhoo.

He was an old man, older than anyone on earth could
imagine. He had seen the Indian wars. He saw the women and
children turned into slaves. He had watched and waited for the
white man to come. He didn't choose to be born an Indian, not
in his case. He was the mentor of all time. He had seen other
worlds besides earth. He wasn't annihilated, nor was he born
into an extinct culture. He was eternal.
As a young boy, he was different than his brothers. He
was not permitted to play war games. He was not permitted to
speak. No person forbade him, the words would not surface.
He was not imprisoned inside himself. He had a connecting
spirit, not a grasping spirit but a flowing spirit on a chosen
path of determination. The only one that had knowledge of his
quest would be the Creator himself.
One morning as he was preparing for the day, he
picked up his headband, only today it was for a different
reason. He saw the day in front of him and his eyes filled with
tears. Blood rushed through his heart with a flush of heat,
warming his entire body. He became greatly excited
anticipating the day and final sunrise.
The spirit voices became very loud, talking and
scurrying to and fro. He knew these people. They were
familiar to him. He was remembering he had never spoken a
word before now... It had become customary not to speak to
anyone without purpose and not to speak to someone without
permission.
If people were hungry and the wind was blowing, you
could catch the scent of wild game. It was hardly necessary to
speak. The warrior hunters would get up at once, jump on their
horses to return late afternoon with plenty of sustenance.
The day has passed and it becomes impossible to
conceive a circumstance which cannot be realized. This was a
strange new world thought the boy. He had captured the

Trees whistle a warning and look to the sky
as shivering stones dance in liquid blue field,
and listening moccasins warily step
soft up, soft up and a tum, then freeze
as the North Wind seizes the night.
The ice snake winds past Old Woman Moon,
his cloudless stealth feinting gusts of breath,
and shocked stars rue their jealous past
watching First Daughter spin on the edge of the world
as the North Wind takes the night.

I 10

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Laura A. Marsden

dream. He used faith to get him through the day. The only
evidence of reality was a sweetly tired body which was his.
"I know you care for me," the young man no longer a
boy said to his grandfather with his mind. "Yet I am lonely,
who will speak for me? Who will mark my path?" He picked
up his moccasins unaware of the time of day, threw his shirt
over his shoulder and walked.
The footsteps were new, the grass was soft. He lay
down and flew over hard hills, down to lakes. In the wind he
heard a song. It was sung by a woman. She is singing to her
spirit love. I can't pass this by thought the young man.
Grandfather, I am not like other people but I know I am
no different. I don't know why or when I knew or when the
realization came. I can talk now, I can sing. I have children but
first I teach them with my mind. I teach them the spirit is not
fantasy, that life is important without question, that silence is
a gift long ago forgotten.
I think the mountains are the real stonefaces, the ones
who lie on their ceremonial beds of rock, turned to stone
through time, witnessing a forever and eternal adventure of
life. I am like those mountains. I want to hear the smallest
sparrow rustling in his nest, waiting too for that nourishment,
that down to earth daily type of existence.
The man, older now didn't feel so ancient by
comparison, and was fortunate never having been compelled
to speak, never feeling obligated to explain to another being,
something that was beyond him. For words quickly change the
meaning in the everlasting traditions of life.

112

Mari.Jo Moore

Daughter of the Sun

I entered the din of her silence-she motioned me to sit. Never
taking her eyes from her weaving, the Beloved Woman began
a story.

The sun did not like the people because
such ugly faces were made when they looked at her.
But the moon loved the people
so the jealous sun planned to kill them
and sent scorching rays.
The Little Men turned one of the people
into a rattlesnake to bite and kill the old sun
but the rattlesnake bit the sun's daughter instead.

"I have always wanted to have skin as red as yours," I said to
her, unashamedly.
She continued her work and story.

And when the sun found her daughter dead, she went into hiding
and grieving and all the land was darkened.
The Little Men instructed the people to go to Tsvsginti 'i
where they found the daughter of the sun
dancing with the other ghosts.
The people struck her head seven times with a stick
and put her into a box and began to carry her
the long way back to their homes in the East.

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MariJo Moore

I watched as her long hair fell around her shoulders, blending
in with the midnight, moving to Indian time.
On the long journey the daughter of the sun began to plead
with the people to please let her out but they refused.
The Little Men had told them not to open
the box under any circumstances.
But she begged them and begged them,
saying she was really dying,
so they opened the lid of the box
and out flew a red bird to settle in nearby bushes.

MariJo Moore

NOTES

A Beloved Woman is one who is extremely influential in tribal
affairs-a woman who speaks in council meetings and
communicates with Beloved Women of other nations. In years
past, a Beloved Woman was sometimes known as War Woman
because she had the power of life and death over captives of
war. She also had a voice in deciding whether or not the
Cherokee Nation would go to war.
Little Men-Anisga 'ya Tsunsdi 'ga. The two sons of Kanati,
the Great Thunder Spirit, who live in the sky vault. Also called
the Thunder Boys.

"I have waited a long time," I told her. There is but one true path
and I want to know the way.

Tsvsgind 'i-The land of the Spirits in the West.
The sun is female to the Cherokee and her brother is the moon.

When the people returned to their homes
and opened the box it was empty.
The sun cried and cried for her daughter
until the people danced and sang
causing the sun to smile and shine through her grief.
Because the people let the daughter of the sun
fly out of the box we cannot bring back the ghosts
of our people from Tsvsgind 'i.

Laying down her work, she motioned for me to follow. She
showed me how to touch the future with fingers of intuition
and glimpse the past with guided dreaming. But I could not
capture the total essence of what the Beloved Woman had said
until I began to walk under the waterfalls inside my own
being. Then I began to weave.

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115

Rasunah Marsden

The Cunning of Men

everyone I read
writes fancy things
many more intelligent than I
I don't know this
I feel this
the way they understand
so many more things
sooner than I
always intrigues me.
this begins a collection
of stories made from observations
I have made,
some memories are faulty
but as has been pointed out
recently to me,
"things which are important
will come back to you."
when I speak it is easier
but when critical ears are listening
the details of my stories change
though the kernel of the story
may not
but I am here today
to speak a little of these things
& that is all.
an old man of hard experience,
I spent a recent afternoon
appra1smg a young woman
of the cunning of men.

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Rasunah Marsden

one day in my teens, I told her,
my mother & I were drunk
& she took me into her bed.
coming to my senses the next day
I beat her severely with a stick.
if something was going well,
I would try to destroy it.
For instance I knew a woman
whose husband was away at war.
I was aware
she had slept with a few men
& eventually it came to be my tum.
news came that her husband was soon
to return but nevertheless I found
her knocking at my door one night.
sending her away, immediately
I phoned her husband & told him
all I knew about his wife's behavior,
which ruined the marriage.
another time I arranged a meeting
in some small town with another woman
I was having an affair with,
proceeded to get drunk & when I came to,
realized the woman was gone.
tho she'd paid my expenses,
& had taken a taxi elsewhere.

I

iI

I telephoned her to meet me again
& when she arrived she was wearing
sunglasses. when I asked her to take them off,
she showed two black eyes & on her neck
also bruises. "Whoever Beatrice was,
she must have hurt you very badly,"
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Rasunah Marsden

the woman explained.
I never revealed
my mother's name to her.
years later I confronted my mother
& asked why she had done that
with me & why also she had slept
with other male relatives
I had known. she cried
at what I revealed,
but I forgave her.

Rasunah Marsden

from well-intentioned, & far from
something refreshing & healing.
in some mysterious way
it is impossible, I told her,
to find, if you are looking for it,
anything more
than a mixture of evil & purity,
anything more
than fallen ash on snow

stories like these are hard
& sometimes frightening
to digest. But that night
the young woman dreamt
(she told me) that she was talking
to one of the most beautiful
eighteen year olds
she had ever met.
I can only say
there's no explanation
for the hell that people
will go through or be put through,
there's no explanation
why such horrible stories
should be told by a beautiful soul,
but there may often be
a very great distance
between the words you hear
& the inside of the teller.
by contrast, the prettiest words
belie interior selves which are far

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Rasunah Marsden

Richard Van Camp

Yellow Leaves

The Night Charles Bukowski Died

yellow leaves announced premature change
earwigs crowded window sills or fell off countertops
fat flies & then the mosquitoes thinned out drastically
hornets buzzing around the sap of the tree
finally burrowed holes underground as the level of the lake
sank & with it I began yet another year's hibernation

Why did I play the water loud as Herman cried in the
shower well two nights ago we took Herman to the field and
showed him how to punch kick defend himself and I think of
the time we went for lunch at the caf and I said Ho Herman yer
sitting the wrong way you can't see the babes if you're facing
the wall
Not he said I'm not facing the wall I'm looking out the
window behind you
I turned and for the first time saw a mountain stabbing
clear through the clouds and for a moment I turned to Herman
who was smiling and loved him and last night 2 am there was
Scott
Fat red-head rugby playing Scott
180 pounds
Fat knuckled
Thick legged
Mean
Doggy on all fours muddy socks wet vomiting into the
toilet and he and I were going to fight the night before cuz he
was making fun of Herman who's THIS close to killing
himself and I said Don't be a fuck
Scott said What? Chill out God it was only a joke
And I was THIS close to burning him cuz Herman
can't defend himself he's 19 he's had two complete
breakdowns so far he's on drugs for his screaming he said
When I was a kid I just couldn't stop screaming I couldn't hold
onto my emotions like other kids I was different
Scott puked on the floor in the dorm bathroom he said
I'm not sorry about trying to get Herman to eat that glue stick
I said You better lay off him
Fuck off he said The retard's here on a computer
scholarship and forgets to wipe his ass he shouldn't be here
and heaved some more I studied the back of his neck and

that week my niece called to announce
she'd survived the birth
if not so lustily as her newborn son
& my children's calls quieted one by one
eventually all the curtains were drawn & with them
dreams of the real you still waiting for me
were dreamt in better worlds
in better worlds where the trees were filled
to bursting with yellow leaves that never fell

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Richard Van Camp

thought if he were a rabbit I would take him with my teeth and
there is sickness everywhere in this dorm nobody flushes you
can smell it in the piss on my socks when I go back to my
room and in my room we were playing dominoes when Scott
stormed in and teased Hey Herman why don't you finish
eating this glue stick
I thought I should hurt him scoop his eye in or rip his
nose away
And J was there he saw it all and after I kicked Scott
outta my room the air hung heavy after Herman left quiet
Jason said Something has to be done I hate guys like that I hate
white boys like that I hate them We gotta do something I hate
it
Looks like the kid the dog and the old man got eaten
Jason says and looks up at the ceiling
We listen to the crying and blubbering in the shower
and shake our heads
Herman's talking to himself again and I don't think he
knows it
So I'll have to move out at the end of the month cuz
Scott heard my screaming and the shit is gonna fly when the
dorm finds out what we did
Shit
And Herman was THIS close to crying when he said
They pennied my door shut and I didn't know who to call This
was before I knew you I wish I knew you then
I said How the hell does anyone penny your door shut
They slammed my door shut and three guys pushed it
to the frame while someone pushed pennies into the frame to
lock the door closed I couldn't open it I knocked on the door
for two hours and Scott was laughing in the hallway going You
like that retard? You're on the third floor retard why don't you
jump!? mMP!
I wanted Herman to take this take this roar in his head
take a black shotgun and light this whole dorm up just grab
Scott gut peel and skin him and go just go til he hits the
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Richard Van Camp

province line and go just go and Dominoes we showed
Herman how to play Dominoes for the first time in his life and
when I picked up my seven they sounded like bones and Jason
told us a baby caribou cries like a cat and I watch Herman
cover his smile with his small puppy hand and I think of him
this poor first year kid with eyes so close I get a headache if I
look into them too long falling in love with all his waitresses
and I wonder what it'll be like for him the first time he goes
down on the woman who takes him he with such beautiful
little songs on the wind his eyes closed as he holds her hands
his tongue parting lips and her going I can feel the sky diving
between my legs don't stop oh please don't and the roar in his
ears as she locks her thighs around him the same roar in his
head when he was locked in his room for TWO HOURS Scott
booming a basketball off the penny locked door going You like
that Retard? You like that?
And Herman can't hear a thing
He can't hear a thing
For once
You listening Herman? Jason asks These are fighting
stories from home We're trying to make you strong and
Herman nods I tell him there was a moment there when a
Slavey Elder stood between his grandchild and a silver tipped
grizzly and surrender was never a moment on anyone's lips He
had an ax in his hand looking at a silver tipped grizzly with his
grandson standing behind him No there was nothing on his
lips but COME THE FUCK ON LET'S DO THIS and Herman
said Wow neat and Jason asked Did you understand the story
Herman? Do you understand what we're trying to give you?
And Herman says I think so
I think so
We nod good and pull from the mattress balaclavas
Herman doesn't hold out his hand so we hold it out for
him and squeeze I'm taping my knuckles and listening to the
Cranes now and man they know that Carnival means the
celebration of spinning until the meat flies from your body and
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Richard Van Camp

I'm thinking the woman who takes him stands THIS close to
Herman before it happens and she says You're always
laughing it's the most beautiful sound in the world and he will
put his scream away
You have no pupils she says
I do he goes
I have to stand THIS close to you to see them she says
And he can feel the break of her laughter against his
face and he feels it she tells him The reason the dogs bark at
you when you walk down the street is they know you ate a dog
in another life and they can still smell it on your breath and
they go crazy biting their own tails and each other's It's your
scent not you they hate she says and rises to kiss him and hold
him and he closes his eyes and they fall to their knees in secret
I hold my seven dominoes and say Herman here's what
we're gonna do we're gonna wear these balaclavas and you
and Me and Jason are gonna get Scott and Herman goes Wull
are we gonna really beat him up?
I go Yeah we'll roll him
And Herman goes Yeah we'll roll him on the ground
And Jason and I laugh
I called home and told mom about Herman and Scott
and I had to stop and open the windows and wipe my eyes and
go Everybody in this dorm knows he bullies Herman but
nobody does anything
Nobody
They're just as brutal to each other here as they are
back home Me and J are on the first floor we can't always
watch him and I drop my dominoes and pray Herman'll drop
Scott cuz tonight the dogs back home jump in the air spin and
try to snap their chains and Me Herman and J played
Dominoes and Charles Bukowski AT THE SWEETWATER
on disc and I was so disappointed when we finally heard CB 's
voice and me and J agreed Bukowski should have had the
voice of a monster not a boy and Herman asked who is
Bukowski? And we said you know Barfly? The movie? The
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Richard Van Camp

poet? The guy who said I'm on fire
I'm onfire
like the hands of an acrobat
I'm onfire
And Jason played his sacred pipe the one he saves for
weeping
And tonight we waited in the black no moon shadows
Me Herman Jason in balaclavas on the proving ground and
Scott staggered from the direction of the campus bar carrying
a six pack moving slow
I'm thinking he works out
wears a mean face
loves to ride a soul to pieces
has a girlfriendWhy?
Herman Jason whispers rolling his hood down Theres
your silver tipped grizzly Lets tear the night to pieces
Herman looks at him and I think for a second he's
going to wave to Scott
I run
Jason blows his pipe and Scott stops Who's there?
J blows his pipe again and I let loose my war cry there
is a roar in my head and we are wolves
Herman stands in the bushes and watches Scott who's
standing tilted looking around I take him throat throw him
down while Jason boot staples Scott's nose to his face
Scott drops
moaning down
his fat hands trying to plug his gurgling I look at
Herman and sayNow's your chance! Hermanjust stands there
his balaclava not even down and J looks around and goes
Come on man MOVE!! But Herman just stands there I can see
his face and I think He's laughing at us he's fuckin' laughing
at us I grit my teeth then it hits me he's crying standing there
stupid fucking RETARDEDHEY! Someone calls and we grab Herman back into
125

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I

Richard Van Camp

the campus forest and he falls and trips HEY! Someone calls
again-CAMPUS SECURITY-STOP!!
We all lay down as there are two of them They run past
and Herman is holding his hands to his face he's crying
sobbing and I'm wet from the grass and Jason has point and
motions We're okay
I whisper Herman Why didn't you do it? We were
holding him man You could have busted him
And Herman holds himself and cries You beat Scott up
You hurt him
I want to go home
I want to
go home I
want to go
home
I hold him this skinned caribou crying like a cat this
little kid who never stopped screaming As he cries into my
chest Jason looks down his bamboo flute broken I
throw
back
my
head
and
roar

126

Suzanne Rancourt

Honour Song

there
in the box wrapped in red wool blanket
you there
on top of the flat cedar
you
in the white ash box
you
i sang you home
even though
it was night
1 sang
songs
of the Sun
we drove
aunt tispit
and me
you my mother
home my mother
i sang
out on the Hill
an Eagle lifted off
at dawn
you
this
i thought of that day you slipped
through the crack of day
your Soul
lifted off
with the power
of a single drop
of water
on the tip
of a Choke
Cherry
leaf

11
I

127

Suzanne Rancourt

Suzanne Rancourt

Crooked Nose

Cleft is the chin that harrows the air with arrogance
the air, the hummingbird swirls its slashing

To the side of his sway backed bed he rolls.
The light, he fumbles for, its bolting streak

wings, rises up as did five years ago
again and again, not dead like the sparrow

of nightshade glare cannon balls the wall, fireballs
across the pumpkin-pine-board-floor, narrowly

left under the leathery lobes of bloodroot
but resurrection through the "O" of it all.

escapes through the squinting crack of venetian
blinds. Another belladonna morning

The bambilia camouflaged his flaccidity.
Even then, too succulent as fit root

searching for belt loops, dry socks and cigarettes.
Another body-bag-fog-pressed morning

from a distance their opulence everlasting,
but snap: with the pressure of a pastel touch

bleeds his clouded mind to the edge of a
Stewart's coffee cup and grey mystery.

compassion the colour of fragrant bitter root.
Gravel along the brook reminds him of

Sediment and fear silt the sink hole of
his offering cauldron travel mug.

the day he found the sparrow stiff
under the canopy of sanguinaria.

And shimmed betwixt his eyelids are well kept
sleepy seeds of anger, they wait, their coiled

There was nothing to let go of but the flutter
of feathery hope a bird no longer needed him

chaos like morning datura with its
luscious, closed fluted tongue blossoms fleshy

to hold and five years ago it was abrasively
concrete as the thud heard as a car door slammed

lips of fragrance unravel sunrise
into a pastoral oblique of greens

but a bird to the windshield to the roadside had fallen
wings, capoeira in the dirt, bathing or dying or

that spreads itself as a garden of toads
and slugs, moles and snakes, earthworms and beetles-

fighting the resurrection that a child's laughter cultivates
until the weight of death itself presses back

each hue cultivating the other, deft
is the hand that tills the syrian rue.

the leaves the ancestors cloak their breath with.
No one wants to touch his world

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betwixt the wavering gold grasses, fields of it, and
the underneath of his monkshood, and fruitless

Sipping
-for my mother

may apple where he toys with the idea of light.
It was not always bone china, the cup
the saucer, that your long feathered fingered hands wrapped
and chipped as flakes of teeth tunked by the mouth
of a beer bottle: the cup, the saucer, holding
the moisture of an eggshell candling its paper-porcelainess to count
your shadowed maybes on the other side, like in the old days
when kerosene rags haloed your brow of buggy locks.
It only smelt as bad as it was.

No one really believed
the stories of clothing fashioned burlap from sugarflour--or potato sacks or that the lamb
really hung itself and its mother bleated for it
for days, her tits festered with grief that you
still added to your tea and stirred with a sterling
spoon with some unknown initial bought with
bottle money at a high-end junk shop because you
could finally do that but no one really believed
the pastoral truth of poverty and trudging for miles
to a colder school than the walk through snow drifts
or the belly-down-face-first sled ride past Springers
not the toboggan ride that broke your leg. You knew
no one had a spirit like yours. But no one
really believed it anymore than the sound of silent
precision of breath and the polyrhythms of chomping bits
and restless hooves while hitching up the team of horses
to the sleigh, buffalo lap blankets and all those brass bellsgold gilt, brass bells, gold
rimmed your post-menopausal Currier and Ives
tea cups chattering on trays accompanied by different spoons
but still silver and embossed. Com'boss!
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Suzanne Rancourt

Com'boss! And who's boss on the farm
whose soil milked sweat and youth from the backs of boys,
their spines a stack of wafers: no more Canadian jigs.
All compressed into a bale of square cornered hay
and stacks of photo albums and things you wanted to be
when you had enough desire to dream and hope.
Who could have guessed?
No more switchel no more swinging scythe
no more Jimmie Stewart hay rides, no more no
more all in one square cornered hay a kachunking machine
pursed forth a cube of nutrition, ready the black tea,
render the recollections of bitterness that you could not
set down:

Suzanne Rancourt

on the palette your tongue dabbed unconsciously
and repeatedly painting on your retina the
goofiness of horror:
a barking shadow-dog on a canvas tent wall,
the neighbor girl and her baby as they died
in a head on collision. Who'd have guessed it was you
driving behind them and witnessed
the explosive ball of white light a microsecond
prior to impact.
Sitting alone with a cup of tea was almost too much.
Whatever Greek poet said a heifer could be milked
was just damn wrong and no matter how you mixed it
the lamb still hung itself and you ate it.

Squirrels no longer fascinate me nor do people sitting
in parks or at city bus stops. Joggers
have become common place as the knee pads
on roller bladers, or head phones, cell phones and
micro fiber. But nobody believes me either.
Who'd believe you'd die?
Only the tea
tastes good piping hot from copper kettles,
mine is black, no English twist of milk,
just dark amber that only stark post menopausal bone
china can appreciate with a tinkling curiosity
of what if's and sugar cubes the size of croutons
molasses tan and irregular like brown eggs
brought in from under the hen's ass in a child's hands
cradling the process before bigger hands crack it all
and somewhere between the delicate deliberate bird bites
of fresh bread and raspberry preserves the squeal
of a stuck pig became a seed betwixt your teeth and lard
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Throwing Stars

At first I thought someone was frying peanut butter
but it was you, really you,
your charred face brittled on the flight mask.
Dog tags you didn't wear any more than seatbelts
tinkled in the cargo hold dangling from the mouths of
luggage
from which clothing exploded, hung, caught up in the
moment,
and wavered like an after shock from the after shock
from the vacuum of the generators
and their brazen light cauterized death into dampness
and late autumn pines.
Heavy frost in Poland Springs-the water froze
from impact too close to home
and the five stars arrived and the m-16s arrived
and the media arrived
and the body bags arrived but you and your buddies
had already gone, flew the coop. Like a Spanish moss
and old olive oil,
your uncontained rancidness leaked through the evergreens.
I never saw your children I never saw your wife I never saw
your mother and father
but I saw the jerk with the camera and his curiosity snatching
memorabilia. Perhaps, he wasn't high tech enough. Perhaps,
he didn't realize all sensitive material had been removed or
maybe we were in his back yard, but really,
it was everyone's backyard.
Howard Hughes only drank Poland Springs' water,
but not that night.
No one drank from the springs that night you busted out of
the sky a screeching fireball,
a pencil point projectile pop-stabbing through
an astronomical poster
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Suzanne Rancourt

ou slashed to the Earth, wind sheared white pine tops,
;lowed Autumn fields for two miles and burnt.
You were blown out of the vast indifference of space
and attitude,
you just didn't make it home !ast e~ough,
just didn't missile under the live w1re soon enough.
Most only knew the half of it and the other half
couldn't give a shit.
Orion fell. We looked for body parts.
When I'm drumming in the park you'd hardly notice
that I knew anything.
If it weren't for my gift of hyper olfactory, I would have
totally forgotten you.
I can smell moth balls for miles, jet fuel for days-sticks
to the roof of my mouth
sends me anaphylactic-I can feel the inside tire blow on a
tractor trailer before I hear it.
A friend had to stop eating meat, can't even be around it,
reminds him of reconnaissance.
Once while jammin'
a drunk fell to the floor trying to dance and drum at the same
time but did neither.
Words soothed him and one night in Saratoga
by the Sulphur spring
in warmer air and damp match sticks waxed our taste buds
while breathing
and the spring pissed in a granite tureen,
the drunk stood still.
In unwavering quiet he listened to words, to poetry, the only
one who understood,
the drunk, had nothing to do with you,
but if he had had a mask
it would have looked like yours.

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The Viewing

It is because you are still here
that I want to write about you.
Even then, you were not a tall person, your height
reflecting the size of Woodland People.
Round now
but not as a young man pressing your back
into the Desoto's closed truck and the heel
of your booted foot hooked onto the curved, chrome bumper,
hands stuffed the slash pockets of your leather jacketAppalachian Jimmie Dean.
I noticed as a child that your handsthick and wide as Oak roots and Bear pawswere like your father's. I noticed
as you handled a wrench, gripped the truck's steering wheel,
or when you moved petrified baby rabbits
from the middle of logging roads. Both of you
rounded, brown and small, crouched
before the rolling dust and grill of a chugging Detroit Diesel.
You swung yourself back into the cab of the truck
hoisting with your Popeye armsyour feet barely reached the clutch, brakes, accelerator.
I asked, "Why did you do that?"
Between releasing emergency brakes,
extending your 29 inch inseam leg and a slight
grinding of gears, you said, "It ain't easy bein' small."
I didn't think of you as being small.
You're gestures were always so big
like the day you said, "C'mon, Suzie, Herbert's killed the bears."
You pulled you height upright, on two legs, and

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charged across the lawn and headed next door.
You even took the short cut
through the spruce trees and down the banking to the road
that only us kids and the dogs used.
I skip-trotted to keep up.
My bare, calloused feet and stubbed toes
animated puffs of road side sand.
Herbert lived next door. Already a crowd congregated
to view the bodies displayed side by side belly down
noses parallel.
Herbert sucked his teeth while he talked.
It wasn't as bad as snapping gum but the sounds
were as sharp. He would squint
the eye opposite the comer of the mouth that leered
as the result of his teeth sucking.
As though he had flesh stuck between them.
"C'mon, Suzie, Herbert's killed the bears"
and we went to see for ourselves our relations
rendered waste by bad blood and heat. To see for ourselves
our family: a boar, sow, and two cubs. Both adults weighed in
as the state's largest.
All lived behind our house on the mountain.
You showed me their tracks. How they marked trees, rolled
logs, where they fished.
When they mated they screamed like women
in the hollow. You said they were harmless.
They had their space and we had ours.
Herbert killed the bears and sucked his teeth
and told how easy it was to kill babies,
how the male required moreheavier trap, shorter chain, more bulletsHerbert just killed.

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You spit a puckering spit that shook the Earth
when it hit just inches from Herbert's feet.
"C'mon, Suzie, we've seen enough."

TI
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win blevins

Respect

Old Yazzie dropped in around three, on foot. I cocked
an eye at him that asked what was up, what made him walk
three miles down the dirt road, when he knows I pick up Tali
from the school bus at 3:45. As usual, he just sat down at my
table, no explanations, and waited for coffee. I poured it into
two speckled cups and watched him add several heaping
spoons of sugar. The milk he added was warm because the gas
refrigerator is broken. My thirteen-year-old needs tending, and
a widowed archeologist who can't travel to job sites makes a
poor living.
Finally, he said in Navajo, "Lotsa people, they been
dying."
The dying wasn't news. The Asian flu epidemic was
mowing down people on the Rez, even in smart and fancy
1957, and the Indian Health Service wasn't popular.
Yazzie's gnarled-looking fingers kept the cup near his
lips, like he wanted the heat close. The winter day was warm,
but old age is cold.
"Something's going to happen," he said. "Meier Wash,
at the mouth, them rock arts." He looked straight into my eyes
for a moment. Both that and him bringing up rock art were
unusual. Those petroglyphs are twelve centuries old. The
Navajo avoid anything to do with the dead, including their
rock art and ruins.
I love rock art, and have spent twenty years on it. I love
the Meier Panel especially. The Basketmaker people, centuries
before the cliff-dwellers, drew gigantic, human-like figures on
the rock, with lines above their heads that suggest to me a
spiritual connection with what's above. I believe these figures
are shamans, bearers of a knowledge we've lost.
"Maybe you go down to that place 'bout day after
tomorrow, go by yourself, have a look. Maybe you tell some
people what you see."
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I felt a lurch behind my navel. Whatever he wanted me
to tell white folks he wouldn't talk to, it was trouble.
Then Yazzie actually explained a little. "This thing,"
he said, "it's done with songs. The grit, the sandy stuff, it's
saved." Then he made a motion of putting something into his
mouth.
That was all he would say.
He rode along to meet the bus. When Tali saw him, she
took his hand and leaned against him, which is as
demonstrative as she gets. He's her great uncle, her maternal
grandfather's brother. But in the Navajo way she calls him
Grandpa.
"Tali, I can't stay tonight. Got something to do."
She put her arm around her white father and cast sad
eyes at her Navajo grandfather. Her eyes said what I already
knew. Something was bad wrong.

****
Meier Wash is three round-about hours, across the
river and back to it by four-wheel. I left Tali with her relatives
in Mythic Valley, so she could play with her cousins.
To avoid the roughest part of the road, I walked the last
two miles, and enjoyed stretching my legs. I grew up in this
country. Before the war my folks had the trading post at
Mythic Valley, fifty miles by dirt road from the nearest
supplies. I grew up speaking Navajo to everyone but my
parents. Probably was ten years old before I figured out I
wasn't Navajo.
Dad used to take me on his pack trips to the great ruins.
Some of them, Canyon de Chelly, Betatakin, he discovered
those, and knew as much as the scientists he guided back.
The petroglyphs grabbed my imagination and held on.
My God, these people chipped art into these huge sandstone
walls-CHIPPED it, using antlers or the like. Think of the

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time, the patience, the determination. Why? What was so
important? Why make art instead of planting, gathering food,
carrying water, and hunting? Who were they sending a
message to? Their descendants? The human race?
Themselves? The gods? Why did they care?
One thing was clear to this captivated teenager. For
these people, art wasn't leisure, it was survival-if not
survival of the body, then the spirit.
When I was eighteen, I went off to the University of
Arizona with a keen hunger for knowledge of the ancient ones.
And came back hungry. This is my country. Getting to
know it, that's water to the parched earth of my heart.
My wife was born and raised here, Red House Clan,
born to Salt Clan. We brought up our children here. Except
Tali, they're all gone over now. Reservation life is hard on
human beings. For family, I have only Tali left.
For work, I've had the rock art. Where the teenage boy
speculated and dreamed, the man learned scientifically and set
down hard-won knowledge for everyone. If you were an
archeologist, you'd recognize my name, Patrick 0. Callahan.
I also helped raise people's awareness about artifacts.
When I was a boy, if you found an artifact, you displayed it at
home, or, if it was a fine piece, you sold it. Not so much any
more. These are treasures, irreplaceable, keys to understanding
of a way of life we'll never see again, a way that helps us see
what it means to be human. If you take a shard of pottery
away, or even a com cob, much less an entire pot, or a yucca
sandal, you are stealing from the legacy of the human race. If
you deface rock art, the same. Understand: Even touching rock
art damages it, because of the oils in your hand. Though it
looks indestructible, it's fragile as desert blossoms.
A few people loot ruins, and make a living at it. I am
opposed to capital punishment, except for people who steal or
deface Anasazi artifacts.
Now you'll understand why I was dumfounded and

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sickened when I saw Meier Panel. The big shaman figures
were cut to pieces.
Yazzie.

****
I sat there all day, staring. I am not the sort of man to
tell you about rage I felt, or the hot tears I wept.
Not until dark did I start walking back to the car. I
made myself stop hurling words at Yazzie-"That art stood for
twelve centuries or more ... What right did you have ... ? Those
figures had spiritual power... What right ... ?" Not to mention,
"You son of a bitch ... "
Step by step along the dirt road in the dark, I forced
myself to consider exactly what I'd seen, all of it, what Yazzie
had said, and what the meaning was. By the time I picked Tali
up, I was making sense of it, and I was calm.
The next day I came back. Probably when Yazzie said
tell someone, he meant Dan Stem, the Bureau of Land
Management ranger, or Rulon Washburn, the sheriff. Dan
would have wrung his hands ineffectually and started the
creaky machinery of the Federal Government, which would
have led eventually to nasty questions I would refuse to
answer.
The sheriff is a blunter sort of fellow, one who divides
the world into those who show respect and those who don't.
Law-abiding Mormons have respect, the way he sees things,
and Indians, hippies, and coloreds don't. Archeologists, along
with artists and lovers of wild country, occupy a dubious
middle ground. The sheriff would know I'd been tipped off,
demand to know who told me, and haul me in on obstruction
of justice charges when I wouldn't tell.
Better to let hikers or river-runners report the
destruction when they came along in the spring.
The person I took the next day, the person who might
need to understand, was Tali.
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At first she just gaped, alternately at the rock and at
me. I was able to keep a calm look.
Finally I said, "Grandpa Yazzie is responsible for this."
Shock blanched her face.
"He didn't do it himself. A medicine man did, and an
assistant. But he asked for the ceremony. He told me this was
going to happen."
She couldn't get words out.
"Don't worry, I won't report him."
"You know lots of people have been dying. Your
Grandma. Two of your sisters been real sick." (Great aunt and
cousins, the way white people figure relations.) "I don't know
who else is sick. Looks like Grandpa Yazzie asked for a
ceremony. The medicine man came here to get spiritual
power. "
She was staring off into space now.
"He did a ceremony to shield him, and his assistant, get
this near the figures. Grandpa told me it was done with
singing."
I pointed at the cuts in the rock, gashes I felt like were
in my flesh.
"You could see they were done rhythmically." I looked
at my daughter but got nothing. There was nothing to do but
go on.
"Look where he struck. Joints. Wrists, ankles, necks,
shoulder blades. Nothing else."
"Why?"
So she was following.
"People kidney's get infected. Then they have a lot of
joint pain. Then they die."
She nodded. Everyone had heard the stories of how it
went.
"Now look on the ground. Grit, lots of it, or sand,
where the shards came out. Finger holes where it was picked
up. They saved it."
"Why?"
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"Two reasons. Your Grandpa told me the patient would
eat some, and part was probably used for the sand painting."
She spoke delicately. "Grandpa Yazzie believes in the
power of these ... "
"And the medicine man did."
"These aren't Navajo."
"Right." I looked at Tali. "Exactly."
"So this, this destroying, it shows ... "
"An attitude toward other people's spirit power."
"What attitude?"
"What would you say?"
She thought and whispered, "Respect."

TI
I

Amy-Jo Setka

Watersong

Give me back my birthwater
let me be born again
Would somebody first
please dim the bright lights?
All I need is the morningstar
no more rough blankets
put my skin against my Mother's
let her flesh warm me.
Before my birth
let the old women
rub my Mother's belly
with hands that smell of cedar and sage.
No metal stirrups for her legs.
If someone could drum very softly
in time to my Mother's heartsong
with old women and birds singing along.
Let their song instead of the hook
be what induces the waves.
In wombwater I'll be dancing
as they sing me into being.

Please don't sell the Placenta this time
bury it under the red willow tree
and leave a little bundle there for me.
Let the small ocean of life
go into the Earth.
For both of us.
All blessings returned
birth to birth
washing our wombwater
over sweetgrasses
instead of a floor.
All blessings returned.
Life to Life to Life.
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Shirley Brozzo

We Have Walked The Same Places

You were there in DC
As I climbed the Lincoln steps.
You were there as I left the bus in the middle
Of Arlington
Surrounded by
Neat rows of white crosses
Standing at attention.
The eternal light flickered
While the somber Marine
Paraded
Before the tomb of the no-longer-unknown
Soldier.
Beggars
Abound on Pennsylvania Avenue
Before the great white house
And just around the comer from
The Disney Store
Hard Rock Cafe
Planet Hollywood.
You walked there too
Ahead ofme
Or behind
Perhaps not even in this lifetime
But another
Yet
I felt your presence there.
I have wandered the length of Bourbon Street
Tasting spicy Cajun food
So foreign to my northern tongue
Marvelled at the cleanliness of the streets

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Shirley Brozzo

:r

After nights of partying
Shopped the boutiques offering
Fragrant sachets
Sweet treats
Antique crocheted doilies
Crotchless panties.
Nights spent at street parties
With drunken revellers
Jazz musicians
I felt you in the hurricane rain
driven into my skin by the wind
You were there
Ahead or behind
Not in this time
Perhaps
I felt you.
The Rockies beckoned then
And I flew over
Huge circular tracts
Unlike square acres at home.
Snow covered mounts in mid-summer
Shaded in azure fog
While dry heat reigns below
Welcoming after years in the North.
Turquoise Pueblo pottery
Jewellery
Clothes
And eyes.
Drivers are just as crazy as here
Casino glitter
Imported palms on the boulevard.

~

~\.!
11

ii'
ti

fi

You were there
Perhaps
Ahead

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Shirley Brozzo

Shirley Brozzo

Behind
Walking.

The Voice of the Elders

Beneath eagle's gaze
The lakes are claiming
Lives
Snowmobile riders
Who escape the clutches of the trees
Drinks in flasks
Bottles
Kegs
Modern stills.
Northern Lights fill the skies
Mascots are not struck down
Ceremonies live on near the Rez
National Guard Armory houses spring Pow Wows
Where three dollars gets you fry bread or pasties.

This time the Elders shall have their voice
And their voices will resound loud and clear
Words of Dine, not Navajo
Words in Lakota, not Sioux
Words from Anishnaabe, not Chippewa

Your footsteps fell there
Behind or above
I felt you this time
Perhaps.

And the children of the Seventh Generation
Will hear and understand
The words of the Elders they hear
This time the Elders shall have their respect
And their wisdom will resound loud and clear
Honour the Elders
Honour the land
Honour thy self
And the children of the Seventh Generation
Will hear and obey
The strong wisdom of the Elders they hear
This time the Elders shall have their say
And their words will not fall on deaf ears
Spoken at home, not from nursing homes
Spoken slowly, not in haste
Spoken from the heart, not in jest
While the children of the Seventh Generation
Listen with heart and soul
To the wisdom words of the Elders
Yes this time the Elders shall have their voice
'
And their voices will resound loud and clear

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Shirley Brozzo

Tribal words
Honoured words
Spoken words, for all to hear
And the children of the Seventh Generation
Shall recover their roots
The day of the Elders is here!

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Shirley Brozzo

Mukwa

I just don't know what is going on 'round here.
Momma started spending all her time in the city, not even
coming home at night to take care of me, so Daddy came and
took me to stay with him and Gramma Mel. Daddy said he
would have come in off the fishing boat sooner to get me, but
he didn't know that Momma wasn't there taking care of me. I
just got up in the morning, braided my black hair, ate some
Capt' n Crunch and got on the school bus at 7 :25. After school
I went home and watched Channel 6, ate a bologna sandwich
and some commodity cheese and went to bed. I wasn't scared
when I was in my own house. All I had to do was look around
my little bedroom at the picture of the kodiak bear hanging on
the wall, the black bear's tooth that I got from Uncle Alfred,
and Gramma Mel's bag made out of a bear's paw. I knew that
Mukwa, the bear, was there to protect me. My Daddy always
told me that I was Bear Clan, and that the bear would always
take care of me.
When Momma came back, she was really mad at me
for going to Daddy's, but madder still at Daddy for taking me.
I could hear them screaming at each other in the living room
at Gramma Mel's when they thought that I was asleep. But
who could sleep through all that racket?
"Why did you go off and leave her, Kay? She's only
nine years old, for Christ sake."
"She's big enough to stay alone for a day or two. We
used to at her age, George. Besides, you said you'd be back on
Tuesday to get her. I can't even count on you to come in off
that fishing boat when you are supposed to."
"The fishing was great. We just couldn't up and leave.
You know this is how I make a living for you and her. Al, Erv
and I needed this run. Damn it Kay, the season is almost over.
This trip determines if we make it or break it."

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"It's always that damn boat," Momma screamed
"~hose damn fish and your brothers. You're never even horn~
with us any more. Bert is there every night. And he doesn't
smell like fish."
"So, it's Bert now. Just like it was Charlie before. And
John before that," Daddy retorted.
"Yes," Momma said. "I only came back to get her. Bert
said he didn't care if she came. He'll take care of her and me
so you can catch your precious fish. She's coming with me
tomorrow. We ain't coming back this time."
I lay there crying to myself in the next room. I
r~membered being with Uncle Charlie. He was tall and skinny
hke my Daddy and me, and he had black hair, only he wasn't
Indian like us. I hated the way he hit Momma, especially when
he was drinking. Momma said she didn't like it either, but we
s~ayed with him until she caught him reaching under my
mghtgown when he was tucking me into bed. I told her he did
that lots, but she always told me to shut up. After she saw
Uncle Charlie, we moved back home with Daddy. I don't
remember anyone name John.
I cried more remembering Charlie and hoping that Bert
would not do that too. I didn't want Momma to be hit and I
didn't want to be touched, but mostly, I didn't want to leave
my Daddy.
By morning, I knew what Momma said was true and
not just a dream. Momma was shoving my clothes into pillow
cases. I started to cry again.
"Hush, baby. It will be okay. Bert is coming to pick us
up in a little while. His house is kind of tiny, but we will all fit
for now. You can sleep on the couch. We'll go looking for a
new place soon and you can have your own room again. And
Bert will be home with us every night. And he doesn't smell
like fish."
"I like fish," I said quietly.
"Hush up. We're going," Momma said with a look that
I knew meant not to argue with her.
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r

Just as Bert pulled up in his car, Daddy came home to
see me. He was carrying a large stuffed animal that I knew had
to be for me.
"Here," he said thrusting it at me. "Remember that
Mukwa will always protect you. Take this bear to bed with you
to watch over you. And remember, I love you."
Then he was gone.
Usually I liked going into the city, but this time I did
not. I didn't know when I would see my Daddy again. Or
Gramma Mel, or Uncle Alfred or Uncle Ervin. I just curled up
in the back seat and hugged my bear. I thought I could smell
fish on him.
I didn't see any other Indian kids at my new school, but
I sure saw lots of brown faces and lots of white faces.
Everybody just stared at me; the new kid. I think they laughed
at my braids. I didn't have any new friends at all, so after
school I went back to Bert's and watched TV. He got
Nickelodeon. Momma was never home until just before Bert
got home. She'd fly in, her long hair streaming behind her,
make us some hamburger casserole, then she and Bert would
go out and leave me alone. So I sat and watched TV some
more. At least there was more than one channel.
At night I could hear loud people out on the sidewalk
and cars zooming up and down the road all night long. I would
put my bear's tooth on the table beside the couch where I slept.
I'd look at Mukwa 's picture and put it back under the couch
next to my bear paw bag. Then I would hug the stuffed bear
my Daddy gave me, pull the blanket over my head, and try to
sleep.
Late one night, I woke up to the sound of gun shots.
They didn't sound sharp, but I knew what I'd heard. Daddy
had taken me out hunting before and we heard Uncle Erv
shoot a deer out in the meadow. It kind of sounded like that. I
just hugged Mukwa tighter, but didn't go back to sleep. I don't
think Momma and Bert were even home, cuz nobody came to
see if I was okay.
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The next day in school, I heard that Jaron 's big brother
got shot because he owed somebody some money. Back on the
Rez, Daddy would have traded something if he didn't have
money. I didn't like being in the city. I wanted to go home.
At supper that night Momma and Bert didn't even care
that I was scared. They talked about going out to the bar to
shoot pool. I begged Momma not to go, but they just left. The
traffic on the street sounded louder than usual and people's
voices sounded like they were in the same room with me. I
tossed and turned on the couch, trying to fight off the noise
and go to sleep. I must have fallen asleep for a while, but I
jerked awake when there was a loud BANG and the sound of
glass breaking. I hugged my teddy bear tighter to me and held
my breath. That's when I felt a pain in my side that wouldn't
go away, but I was too scared to move.
Much later Momma and Bert came home and found
the shattered window. Momma came over to see what had
happened. My eyes were wide open. Momma went to pull the
bear away from me, but even after I let go, she couldn't pull it
away. Then she saw the bullet hole.
At the hospital, the emergency room doctor found that
the bullet had just punctured my skin. The bullet was stuck in
me. It only bled for a little while. I couldn't go home that
night. I had to stay in the hospital. But my bear got to stay with
me.
Momma got scared, and went back to Bert's to pack up
our things. "We were going back to the Rez," Momma said.
She didn't know where we were going to stay, but she knew
that we couldn't stay in the city.
Me? I was just glad to be going home. I was going to
see my Daddy. And I knew that wherever I was, Mukwa would
protect me.

154

Shirley Brozzo

How The Beaver Got His Tail

It was spring and the last of the snow had melted. All
of the Beavers were crawling out of their houses, welcoming
the warmer weather and sunshine. The Beavers began to
yawn, and stretch, rubbing the sleep from their eyes ~nd the
stiffness from their muscles and bones. They shook thelf heads
and fluffed their bushy tails. Yes, that's right. Beavers used to
have fine, bushy tails like the chipmunks and squirrels.
On their first day out of hibernation, they ate and ate.
Then they dove into the river, splashing, turning somersaults
and playing tag while they took their first bath of the y_ear.
Once they felt sufficiently cleaned, the Beavers would _clu~b
out of the river and stretch out on the bank to dry. As thelf tails
were drying, the Beavers would nip, paw and preen his or her
tail until it was fluffed and dried.
Next on their 'to-do' list was to repair their houses and
dams after the long winter. Eagerly, the young Beavers began
gnawing down trees. They would chew a little ~n one side,
then chew a little on the other side of the trees until they could
get them to fall over. But as you all know, in the spring time a
young male's thoughts tum to romance. So it is also with the
young male Beavers. Young Bucky Beaver soon began
spending more time looking at young Betty Beaver and _not
paying close attention to what he was supposed to be domg.
He would chew and chew as fast as he could to impress her.
He would keep on working while the other Beavers took a
break. Bucky even offered to share part of his lunch wi~h
Betty, but she politely declined and sat with the other girl
Beavers. After a short lunch, Bucky went and found an early
spring flower to give to Betty, which she tucked behind her ear
as she went back to work. After that, Bucky kept glancing her
way without watching what was going on around him.
Nearby, Bert Beaver was busy gnawing down a tree.
Bucky obviously didn't hear Bert shout "timber!" as his tree
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began to fall. Bucky just kept admiring Betty. Down, down,
down, fell Bert's tree, right across Bucky's tail, squashing it
flat.
Bucky began to scream and shout, "Oh my tail. My
tail. I can't get it out." He pulled and he strained, but the tree
would not budge. Bert and some of the other Beavers came to
help pull the tree off Bucky's tail. They tried to roll it off but
it couldn't move because of a large rock behind it. They ~ied
to lift it off, but it was too heavy for them to pick up. Benjamin
Beaver offered to cut off Bucky's tail, but all Bucky could do
was to cry out in pain.
Fi?ally Betty said, "Why don't you chew the log into
smaller pieces and then lift it off Bucky's tail? I'll start."
So several of the Beavers began to chew the log into
smaller pieces until they could lift the section off Bucky's tail.
Bucky had just about stopped crying from the pain, when he
turned around and saw that this smashed tail would not return
to its former fluffy self.
He tried to shake it. Nothing happened. He tried to fluff
it with his paws. Nothing happened. He dove into the river to
get it wet, then returned to the bank. Still nothing happened.
Betty felt so bad for Bucky that she gave him a kiss. Again,
nothing happened.
Eventually, Bucky and Betty Beaver got together and
started a new generation of Beavers, all born with flat tails, as
were all the Beavers born, beginning with that generation.
So, if you see Beaver today, you will know how they
got their flat tails. You should also learn to pay attention to
what is going on around at all times.

156

Vera M Wahegijig

Truth and Dare ask Raven "The Big Question"
(and over the rising steam of his coffee ... he answers them)

Opening Scene: Coffee shop (in urban everywhere), present
day. Here we find the typical coffee shop, artist types. A little
bit on the fringe. The new-age vibes of Enigma filters through
the smoke and low din of conversation.

A heavy glass door slides slowly and gives way to the fleshy
brown buck-skinned, Raven. His fingers glint with silver as
their tips slide across the surface of the door, smearing it. He
checks his pearly whites with a toothpick and sucks out a stuck
sesame seed from this morning's bagel and cream cheese. A
cotton rainbow shirt-Shakespeare style-balloons around
him as his stocky body saunters to the counter.
"Hey Raven, the usual?" All who know him, know him
by name and greet him with a big rolling R.
"That's right... double latte, hold the milk! You know,
my people are lactose intolerant." With a raised eyebrow, he
winks with a laugh that rolls off his belly and throughout the
crowded coffee shop. The swanky waiter presents the
steaming black coffee in an immense ceramic mug, with
Raven's name hugging it like a bear, and two packets of
whitener.
Raven blows on the hot liquid, cools it a bit and slurps
on the caramel, creamed mixture. As usual, he bums his
tongue. His dark eyes scan the house for a cozy corner.
Everyone here talks the talk but hardly anyone walks the walk.
There are murmurs of saving, protecting or protesting
whatever species are on the top one million endangered
species list. All on the verge of kicking it. Raven shakes his
head. No use in sharing in this kind of talk. These guys are all
full of it. Words, to them, are just words, with no power. He
sidesteps the dead dialogue, moving over to a corner where a
hippie couple snuggles in a tie-dyed aura with nappy hair and
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Vera M Wabegijig

glazed eyes.
A musky odour of patchouli greets him before the
expected and informal, "Dude!" is uttered. They indicate an
empty chair and nod him over. Raven turns the chair and
straddles it. A man who knows what he likes, like the open
wind and riding bareback. He nods his head the way skins
greet other skins out on the street. They return the gesture with
wide grins and extended hands. Somehow, they know the
protocol. Everything is cool and Raven is happy.
Intermission: The waiter waltzes around the coffee shop floor
serenading his customers. Raven joins the waiter for a few
rounds before he refills his mug a few more times, just to be on
the safe side of his daily caffeine intake. Truth and Dare
stumble out for their own fuel-up, returning with a new aura
of serenity.

After another black coffee mixes into Raven's blood
stream, his body surrenders to a wave of giggles with a slap of
jittery nerves. " ... this other time I hitched a ride with a
trucker... " Raven and the two hippies, Truth and Dare (obvious
nicknames), have all warmed up to each other, now sharing
their travel diaries.
"This trucker, as big as, well... me-hehehe," goes
Raven's laughter, "picks me up east of Toronto and says he's
headed west to the Rockies. He's got another load of
cigarettes. Tums out it's his third trip in a month, and he's
beginning to think that a change of shipments will be his
salvation. He wants no trouble with any Mountie, and man, I
don't blame him. So I tells him, 'I'll go with you, I gots my
free access card for all points Canadian and American, and if
there's trouble ... just call for me, Raven.' And, in short, here I
am. I haven't left since. And now, Truth and Dare, why you
here?"
Their dull eyes mix with the lingering haze. At the
same time, "a bad acid trip!" is blurted out between heavy lips.
158

Smiles wipe across their faces followed by mellow laughter
that's caught in their throat with a re-occurring cough. "Ju~t
kidding, Rave. We're destined to cross this mighty land. This
is our first and last time trip."
Then in hushed voices they admit their ultimate plan,
"We're searching for.... the truth."
"Truth, eh?" Raven ponders through the steam rising
from his coffee. He sighs heavily while motioning out the
window, "It's not out there, dudes. You won't ever find it," he
says, then whispers, "out there."
Dare nudges Truth in the ribs, urging her to ask another
question. Truth rummages through her knapsack and pulls out
some dry tobacco, offering it to Raven.
Raven accepts the gift. He shoves it in his back pocket,
leans back in his chair, becoming stoic. Like those old black
and whites pies of Plains Indians captured by some guy who
then introduced the ideal sad, dying Indian. But this man,
Raven, was far from sad or dying. He just liked that serious
looking Indian bit.
"The truth, Truth and Dare," he says with a slight
chuckle then regains his poise, "is right in front of you. Close
your eyes, take a trip inward, and not down your
innards-hehehe," laughs Raven. "Inwards. You'll never find
Truth out there when you're right here, in front of me, but,"
with a wink, Raven whispers, "you'll always have more fun
out there than in here." With that, Raven knee-slaps both of
them, laughing them awake.
Truth searches Dare's eyes, squinting hard and,
reflecting. She then gets up to leave. Dare shrugs and says,
"Didn't you hear Raven? It's not out there, it's right in front of
you."

Truth turns back and stares right into Dare, "I really
don't like what I saw right in front of me." She swings around
and slips out the door without another word.
"There you have it, Dare, the Truth," Raven says.
"Hehehe," Raven laughs the way he does. "Well, whatcha
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Vera M Wabegijig

waiting for? Ain't gonna chase her?"
Dare shakes his head back and forth for too long and
finally stutters, "D-d-do you think I should?"
Raven shakes his head, "Man oh man, enough with all
the questions, what do you think? Where is Truth? Is truth
inside you, in front of you-or what?!"
Raven picks up his empty mug and sets it on the
counter, salutes the waiter, leaving Dare to his stuttering
thoughts.
Final Scene: The waiter in an urban coffee shop turns out the
lights and flips the "Open" sign to "Closed, " then continues
to sweep the floor clean of dust, sand and questions.

What Happened to Dare?
He still searches for Truth wherever he goes.
What Happened to Truth?
She found it inside of her.
What Happened to Raven?
He's in search of the perfect cup of coffee
... minus the cream.
Black Out.

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I

Selina Hanuse

Chasing the Dragon

Many people don't know that instead of smoking pot,
teenagers are smoking heroin. In my seventeen years I have
watched three people, who used to be good friends, destroy
themselves. I was there when they started to use and I was
there when their lives started to unravel. Since then more and
more people, my age, have begun to use heroin. That is why I
believe that heroin is the next fad.
Teenagers of today aren't looking to be enlightened or
inspired like the teenagers of the 60s. I believe this is why
many are looking to heroin to get high. A lot of kids have no
meaning in their lives and heroin is the perfect escape.
It all starts when they first decide to smoke heroin. At
first it's only-once-in-a-while-use. Then once-in-a-while-use
turns into everyday use. Soon they are saving all of their
money just to get high. After a while they are no longer getting
high and they have to smoke more and more. The first time
you smoke heroin you get this great high and it's like the
chinese proverb about a warrior who spends his life chasing
the mythical dragon. If they don't get help or quit soon they
eventually graduate to using the needle. Many say they
wouldn't because needles scare them, but when you get to this
point it's no longer you controlling the drug; it's the drug
controlling you. Fear is nothing compared to the need to get
high. When times were hard and money was scarce they would
get sick. Their stomachs and back would hurt like hell.
Sometimes they would get cold/warm chills. And sometimes
their knees would shake. Most turned to criminal activity to
support their expensive habit. Nothing was too mean or too
absurd, as long as they got money to get high. Many didn't
believe they would end up the way they did. They never
thought they would become addicts. If enough time goes by
they eventually hit rock bottom, more than once.
Watching someone you care about hit rock bottom is
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very hard, especially watching them do it again and again. It
hurts to watch them hurt themselves.
One friend in particular took a lot of energy out of me.
You see, this person got stuck in a cycle of self-abuse. He shot,
stabbed, robbed, committed home invasions; break and enters,
he even stole from friends and family. And he did all of this to
get money to buy his heroin. I was there when he got sick. I
felt helpless because I couldn't do anything to help him. All I
could do was listen to him and try to be a good friend. I saw
him on numerous occasions when he was high. His eyes were
droopy and glazed. He was slow and his speech was slurred.
He would often fall asleep mid-sentence. He often didn't know
what was going on. He had recently become an I. V. user. He
had overdosed a total of three times. The last time he died. If
you are a friend of an addict you should know what you are
getting yourself into.
You have to understand that they have a problem and
the only thing you can do is be their friend. You cannot force
help upon them, they have to want it badly enough to get the
help they need. Always let them know how important they are
and continue to stand by their side. It's going to be extremely
hard and emotionally draining, but I believe everybody
deserves someone who is completely crazy about them,
mistakes and all. Heroin is an illness which no medicine can
cure, and very few escape.

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Selina Hanuse

Just Around the Eyes

I sat in the park, children laughing, parents keeping a
watchful eye, and that's when I noticed him. With the little bit
I saw came a memory, just around the eyes, of someone I've
lost. A memory of you. For a moment I thought it was you. He
was sitting on a bench, reading the local newspaper, and
sipping on a coffee. Standing up quickly, I almost walked o~er
to him but then reality hit. I sat back down on the grassy hill,
my ha~ds trembling as I gasped hard for air. Panting heavily I
counted one ... two ... three ... four ... five. My breathing returned
to normal and the trembling stopped. Calling upon my nerves
I walked closer and closer still, until I reached the bench. He
looked up at me briefly and smiled. A memory, just around the
eyes, of someone I've lost. I got really dizzy and li?ht-headed.
Trying not to faint I managed to produce a smile I hoped
looked real. I sat down, eyes still fixed on his.

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My Mornings

Tl

Selina Hanuse

The Room

I

A wobbly ride
Jerked in and out of the morning traffic
Not knowing what to do
Or say
To the knowns
Or the unknowns
Swarms of colours, names and races
Faceless names
Nameless faces
Flock towards that single, wooden building
A cage
A prison
A school?

164

The room filled with sorrow; flowers adorned the
coffin. People all dressed in black were hugging or crying.
Sarah walked and looked around. She saw a lot of her friends,
but sat down near the back, by herself. The service seemed to
be over and people were saying goodbye one last time. As
Sarah wiped her eyes, her mascara marred the whiteness of the
tissue. Sarah felt sorrow, although she was unsure why. She
didn't know who had died, or why she was there.
As the parade of people passed by the coffin, Sarah
saw her family, her mother was thrown over the casket crying.
"Why? Why Sarah? Why my Sarah?" her mother
cried.

Sarah stood up and went to walk over to her mother, to
tell her that she was okay, but her feet wouldn't cooperate.
Angry at her inability to move, Sarah called out to her family.
None of them took notice. Not one even looked at her. Sarah
started screaming, "Mom! I'm over here. I'm Okay!" Still
nothing. Sarah felt this uneasy feeling in the pit of her
stomach.
Sarah tried again to move but she still couldn't. Her
eyes tried to focus on the pictures that were placed on the
coffin, but couldn't. It was a girl, a young girl about her age.
Sarah closed her eyes, and when she opened them she
was alone. Sarah stood up and walked slowly towards the
coffin. When she got close she closed her eyes and took the
last few steps. When she was right in front of the coffin she
opened her eyes. She was in shock, it was her...

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To be a Child when it Snows

Arms outstretched and spinning round
facing heaven, mouth open wide, she smiled
swallowed a mouthful of diamonds as they
fell
from the sky.

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Selina Hanuse

Twelfth Christmas

I awoke to the smell of pine trees and something
baking. The sun wasn't out yet, but it was warm non~theless.
I jumped out of bed and ran all the way downstairs. The
holiday tree was dressed to the nines. Underneath lay treasu~es
galore. My eyes widened as I saw the large red and white
package.
I got so excited I ran and began the search for a name.
When I finally found the identification tag, I saw my name
printed in bright, gold letters. It was my twelfth cm:istmas, ~nd
the best one ever. I unwrapped the huge gift hungrily, clawmg
at the wrapping paper.
It seems so long ago. I can't even remember what was
in the box, but maybe that wasn't what was important. What
was important was, after six years, I can still remember that
feeling as I unwrapped that box.

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Vanessa Nelson

Vanessa Nelson

Horror Hill

Hill? ... anyone?
Lisa: I heard some people call it Horror Hill.
Rose: Why?
Lisa: Because people were murdered there. Also there are
ghosts that come out on Halloween to get revenge on their
murderers or just to haunt someone.
Me: Is this true, because that's where my dad died.
Rose: Probably.
Me: Wait, I got to hang up. My mom is coming.
Click.

PARTI

"Why do we have to go to Hollow Hill for
Halloween?" I asked my mom.
"Because that's where I grew up and I want you and
Y?U:, brother to see where I used to live when I was a little
g1rl. She answered that same question for ten minutes.
"I want to go Mom!" said my stupid little brother
Isaac.
"See, even your brother wants to go. Now I know you
~ante~ to go out with your friends for Halloween, but you're
Just gomg to have to come whether you like it or not and that
is final," my mom yelled at me.
'
. "It's not fair! I'm thirteen years old, I should be able to
dec1d~ for myself!" I yelled back at my mom. I stomped out of
the _kitchen and upstairs to my room. I could hear my mom
callmg my name, but I kept walking.
.
Before I ~et on with my story, I'm going to tell you a
b,1t ab~ut my family_ and me. My name is Kelly Kerfowski and
I _m t~1rteen. Isaac 1s ten. My mom is thirty-five and my dad
died m a car accident two years ago.
Enough about me, let's get on with the story. Well as
you know I didn't want to go to Hollow Hill because I :as
supposed to go trick-or-treating with my two best friends Lisa
and Rose. That night I did three-way-calling with them.' This
was our conversation:
Me: Guess what?
Rose and Lisa: What?
Me: I have to go to Hollow Hill this weekend and
'
Halloween is this weekend.
Rose: That means you can't come trick-or-treating
with us.
Lisa: That totally sucks. Did your mom make you?
Me: She sure did. Do you know anything about Hollow
168

"Kelly pack up!" my mom yelled.
"OKAY!"
The next day was really cloudy. It was Saturday. My
mom was yelling at me because I got up late. She took my
suitcase and threw it in the backseat.
"Get in the car."
"I'm not sitting in the backseat!"
"Yes you are."
"No, I'm not! I'm sitting in the front where I always
sit."
"Isaac is sitting in the front! DO I MAKE MYSELF
CLEAR?" and then she slapped me across the face.
"Yes ma'am." I hate her, I thought, I really hate her.
The drive to Hollow Hill was about two hours from
Denver. It was long and boring. My brother kept playing his
stupid music all the way there.
When we finally got to Hollow Hill, my mom calmed
down and was singing and smiling. Good, shes in a good
mood, I thought. We pulled in at Grandma's house, and she
was waiting outside with Grandpa in a wheelchair.
"Come here my little lollipop." With those words she
pointed to Isaac.
"Grandma! Grandpa! Isaac ran over to them and
hugged and kissed them. After he was done it was my tum. Oh
no, I'm too old to be kissed! I thought.
Dinner that night was terrifying, everyone was quiet. I
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wanted to start a conversation, so I asked Isaac what he was
going to be for Halloween. He said he was going to be a pirate.
I shouldn't have said anything because now I got myself into
another argument with my mom.
"Kelly, you 're going to take your brother out for
Halloween, okay?" Mom asked me.
"Of course not. I'm not going with anyone. I'm going
by myself." I answered her.
"You're going to take him out and I don't want any
arguments." she told me.
"Grandma, may I please be excused to my room?" I
asked Grandma.
that.

"Where to, Kelly Teddy?" I hate it when she calls me

"To my room. Oh, and next time I ask you something,
I'm much too old to be called a silly and childish nickname,
okay?"
"You may go and I'll try not to," she told me.
That night before I went to bed I read a ghost story to
get myself in the mood for Halloween. I fell asleep a few
minutes later. A while later I woke up and my curtains were
blowing in the wind as if something had come in my window.
I went to the window and closed it. I wasn't afraid because I
thought it was my brother playing a pre-Halloween prank.
Before I went back to sleep, I murmured, I hate this town.
The next day which was Halloween, was really boring.
I mean super boring. I was actually excited to take Isaac out
for Halloween. I took him all over this little town. It only took
us two hours to do the whole town. He was disappointed when
we came home because he didn't get as much candy as he did
in Denver. I was happy because I'd finally get something to
munch on. But, when we got home no one was home. There
was no note saying where everyone was. I told Isaac to go to
the neighbours house and stay there until everyone got home.
I wanted to explore this town's cemetery and see if you could
really see ghosts.

~
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Vanessa Nelson

When I got to the cemetery there was a full moon. It
was Sunday, so all the ghosts would be in the cemetery. My
dad was buried here and I wanted to talk to him because I
really missed him. Once in the cemetery, I go~ the strangest
feeling that someone or something was fo~lowmg m~. I kept
looking behind me, but every time I looked it would disappear.
Suddenly, this big black figure came out of nowhere and
grabbed me. I let out a little scream. Then all these other
ghostly figures came at me.
. .
,, .
"No children in the graveyard after midmght, said a
strange voice.
.
"I don't live around here! What are you gomg to do to
me?" I yelled.
.
"EAT EAT EAT EAT EAT EAT!" chanted the zombies.
I screamed again. They started grabbing me all over
the place, and biting me and I kept screaming louder and
louder until I felt like this was it. This was my last moment on
this horrible earth. I had flashbacks from when I was born to
my last argument with Mom. Wait, no, I thought, J 'm going to
get out of this mess whether they like it or not.
I kicked a zombie's head off and another's finger and
another's leg and another's arm, anything until they were all
off me. I took a deep breath and started running away to my
father's grave. I looked back and the zombies were
reconnecting their body parts. I wasn't halfway to th~ grave
when I remembered the pain in my body from the zombies and
fell to the ground. Suddenly more zombies came out. of
nowhere and I jumped up from the ground and started runn~ng
away again. A zombie grabbed my foot and I kept on runnmg
until more of them jumped on me chanting, "No Escape. No
Escape."
.
I finally fell to the ground giving me hope. I knew _it
was over. I was so close to my dad's grave that I called his
name who knows how many times. They were close to
finishing eating my left leg, when suddenly a big white light
shone from my dad's grave. My dad appeared and all the

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Vanessa Nelson

zombies scrambled back to their graves. I don't know why, but
I started crying when I saw my dad.
"Kelly, you must go home," he told me.
"But why, Dad? I want to talk to you. Why did the
zombies run away when they saw you?"
"You ask too many questions. I will tell you everything
when it is time. You must go home because someone you love
very dearly will soon be gone."
"But I love you Daddy. I want you to come home."
"I can't. I love you too, but you have to go home now."
I wanted to see if I could hug him, so I went over to
him. He knew what I wanted so he came down to the ground.
We hugged. It felt like nothing I ever felt before. I didn't want
it to end and I knew he felt the same way, but it had to end.
"Go home now. I love you. Goodbye." I took one last
good look at him and I saw tears roll down his transparent
cheeks. I never knew ghosts could cry. I was crying since the
beginning. I looked down at my leg, nothing was wrong with
it, for he had healed it. He slowly disappeared in the
tombstone. I turned and walked away, to home.
When I got home, Grandma and Mom were crying.
"Where's Isaac?" I asked.
"Sleeping," Mom managed to say through tears.
"Where is Grandpa and why are you crying?" I asked.
"We have to talk to you Kelly," Grandma said and then
looked at Mom.
I knew what Mom would say, that Grandpa was dead.
"Not long after you took Isaac out for Halloween ...
Grandpa had a heart attack and we rushed him to the hospital,
but we were too late." Mom started crying even more.
Grandma hugged her and opened her arms for me to
come to them. I went. I started crying too. I was happy, but I
was sad.
I looked out the window and saw a herd of zombies
coming. Oh no! I thought.
The end for now.

"So Yous Wount Be Put Away"
AN EXPRESSION FROM MY MOTHER, STILL LOUD AND CLEAR IN MY EARS

My Mother spoke these words to her children almost
every week. My Mom's Mohawk name was She Picks
Flowers. Whenever a situation arose where she wanted me to
feel fortunate in life. She would express herself as best of w~at
she felt she could. I was thirteen when I found out v_ital
information about her life and her actual survival. I was thirty
years old when I finally really knew and understood ab~ut her
cries for sanity, and why I was beaten and abused. This was
her means of expressing her white fears including the need to
be safe and her need to be loved. She would never really speak
about the loss of her Identity, her Name and her Spirit. An~ I
feel and see this haunting, this depth of pain and f~strat10_n
shadowing, covering and protruding over my family. T~is
breeding into generations yet to come. All Mom would say is,
"Just be good, so yous wount be put away, like I was." .
1927. My Mom was institutionalized at the age of eight
years young, along with her younger sister and two younger
brothers. She was sold to the Anglican Church by her fat~er
for two horses and a wagon at Tyendinaga Reserve. On which
he took all four to Belleville to the train and shipped them to
Sault Saint Marie, Ontario. There they all resided in a
concentration camp called Singwauk for some ten years. Mom
did mention her strength and need for survival was attributed
to longing and waiting to go back home to see her mother
again. My mother only expressed bittem~ss and shame.
Sorrow and depression and the need for bemg unloved and
abused. And now all these expressions all breed and haunt my
family. We all sit and hide in the red shadows of whit~_fear in
this untold yellow slimy valley of this so called politics and
church.
She Picks Flowers has left for her Peace and journey to
the Strawberry Fields forever. This happened just two yea~s
ago this fall. And I know inside my heart this is where she is
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D. Lynn Daniels

safe and feels loved. She waits for me to join her. There we can
be in Harmony of Life and pick strawberry forever. I will see
you soon dear Mother. I can wrap my arms around you and
feel the love we couldn't share. But, thank you for the best of
things which you could share and your biggest fear "so yous
wount be put away."
I now have four children and eleven grandchildren. I started
my own branch of the Mohawk Nation. And we still hide
under the white quilt of fear and walk in these blood red
shadows. "So WE wount be put away."
Our love and survival is hidden behind these scared
white fears and deep, deep pain. I have carried now for some
sixty years, the anguish and suffering of pain of my Mom.
I walk strong with my white quilt of shame, my
disguise. I walk strong with frustration stepping softly in my
moccasins. This respected Mohawk Elder, Strong Warrior
Woman of the Wolf Clan of the Mohawk Nation, today in this
year 2000, each day left for me allows me the opportunity to
write and express my spirit and myself.
Each Day teaches me about Peace and the freedom of
respect. And I will not, no I wount be put away. Each Day
prepares me for the walk up the Milky Way to Our Strawberry
Fields, where All Women can pick in strawberries forever.
See you soon Mom.

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Kayenderes

Marguerite

Her name was Marguerite. She was my grandmother,
whose essence was only captured twice by opportunity. One
opportunity sits collecting dust within the confines of my
parents' china cabinet. Framed on a bone-white china dinner
plate is a photograph of a plain woman with small, dark eyes.
Her straight, black hair fashioned with a centre part that rarely
deviated from its intention, falls in uneven edges to just above
her shoulders. I see in her features traces of noble, quiet
strength that came to her through the bloodline of a Cree and
French descent. Standing to her right is the one I knew as
'Grandpa,' a surly Englishman who rarely spoke. My distant
living memory of him is around the time of my thirteenth
birthday, as he is given a military burial in honour of his
service to God and Country during WWI. Perhaps there is no
irony in the second image of my grandmother that remains
etched in my consciousness.
It is the picture of her funeral that commands my
retrospective ascent into her legacy first. I believe that my
father is thirteen years old, and he is standing beside her open
casket. Within the crowd gathered around him are a few faces
I recognize as his brothers and sisters, all rendered in a design
of grief, coloured black and white. Others that are present
outline something of my father's expression, tones of
confusion and disbelief. I think that I had seen the picture in
one of my Auntie's photo albums. I can't be sure, it was a
years ago. What haunts me now is not tragic, woeful loss, but
the need to dedicate and restore honour for the gift she has
given me.
What is this gift? I believe it is ancestral legacy,
granted in the reflection of a memory about a woman no one
speaks of because her earthly record is so far from the life they
were forced to live without her? There has become a persistent
longing to know about her, in greater detail that would lead me
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D. Lynn Daniels

to understanding some of my heritage, that for so long was
treated with silence and secrecy. But what is it that I know
about her already?
"She died in the hospital, that's why Dad hated the
church._" As I listened intently to the discussion taking place,
my child ears peaking with curiosity, one of the adults
followed with the explanation that the nuns, who were
responsible for my grandmothers' care and delivery of her
infant, failed in their duties. She would fatally hemorrhage,
and at the age of thirty-nine, being survived by a husband
twenty-two years her senior and ten children, leave the world
behind to return to the loving arms of the Creator.
As an adult, I became privy to knowledge that neither
shocked nor stunned me. "She came for help once, with the
kids, because she was being beaten by the old man." Life
treated her harshly, I have no doubt. It is part of my collective
intuition. That there would be anything less than honour and
respect for all deeds done with nothing to be ashamed of is
what most of us deserve. This is far from the truth for some,
perhaps most. I ask myself, how the disclosure of a less than
perfect family history serves the memory of Marguerite? I
can't be certain of its' effect. Some of my people would be
wounded and protest exaggeration on the part of me, the
writer. The disclosure could create the opening of older, much
deeper wounds than have been tended to, and succumbed to
healing such as healing becomes when it is so far from the
present. Is this what I owe my grandmother?
Acknowledgement of her pain, or was hers of so little
consequence because she would leave to be with the Creator
before anyone would have a chance to record her legacy.
My point of reference into her nature takes me to the
picture in the china cabinet. Mystery surrounds and permeates
her image within the confines of my imagination. Herein lies
my fascination and inherent difficulties with not having
known her, even for a single moment. I can only realize
conjectures of the soul and spirit that entertained an identity
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D. Lynn Daniels

and lifestyle within the confines of flesh and bone. More
practical souls in my world argue that a photograph is not
meant to capture personality, desires, wishes for the prying
eyes of a curious granddaughter. Nor was it the intention of the
photographic sitting to be more than a moment captured for
posterity of a family in the mid 1920s to be held, cherished and
passed on, to be nothing more than a staple in a bulging,
yellowing photo album. Is there a need for more unanswerable
questions? My subconscious suggests to take in the images,
placing them in my own synaptic recesses as people I have
come from and be satisfied with that. So what of Marguerite?
The question remains to be dealt a fair and satisfactory
answer, not just for my own selfish, self-absorbed benefit, or
is it? I have Aboriginal roots but I am a fair-skinned, freckledfaced, blue-eyed woman whose claim to that heritage is
through Marguerite. I have a Metis card, but feel inadequate
and subject to ridicule by my Aboriginal brothers and sisters if
I use it. Although I have not encountered such treatment, I step
cautiously into the arena of a community and culture I want to
know more about.
Not so long ago, I was forced, through stress-induced
vulnerability, into the world of spirituality, mysticism and
holistic practices. I would discover the purpose of my
existence on this Earthly plane was to teach the things that I
was here to learn. As difficult as I found this to concede, I
allowed my Spirit to navigate my direction and so began my
humble beginnings as a newly found seeker of my own reality.
In doing so, I was obligated to come to an agreement with the
past, present and future elements that have created my dharma.
These elements are ascribed through an affinity and desire to
understand my Aboriginal ancestors.
Through Spirit, I heard a sound from within that is the
voice of the ancestors to whom we are indebted. I learned from
a quiet, diminutive Shaman about the significance of tobacco
as a sacred offering to the Spirit World. Hungry for more
answers to my questions about the Spirits and his experiences,
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D. Lynn Daniels

I bombarded him with questions, which, with infinite patience
and grace, he answered only the ones he felt I was intended to
know. I left the experience feeling hungrier. I decided to learn
more, but circumstances would have me follow a journey
more pragmatic and grounded in the world I have lived in for
so long. I gravitated towards the picture in the china cabinet,
focussing on Marguerite.
I started a painting for her. Through the channel of
Spirit, I began to create an image of her as if she were singing
to my heart centre. I depicted her with eyes closed imagining
away brutal fists and crushing blows. Her modest, worn spirit
being was instead to be caressed by gentle strokes and loving
touches cascading from Heaven. With deliberate and candid
passion I let the· brush find the right stroke to discover her
meaning. I stop to meditate on her animal spirit and from her
own heart centre, unfolds the symbol of a bird in pale brown
hues. What emerges from that is the form of an infant yet to be
born and would bring with her, ancient and compelling
knowledge. The evolution of the process is catharsis as I
purged context, archetypes and ancestral legacy. All of this
created to honour Marguerite.
Marguerite did exist on this plane. Had she lived, she
would be opening a new century with a life nearly ninetyseven years long. I want to believe that had she lived, I would
know the details of my heritage. These details would have
been filled in with coloured narratives of history, events and
the characters who supported the legacy. I would have had a
much richer, fuller black and white photograph of my
grandmother. My dedication to her would have been truer,
perhaps with less whimsy and romance, as I tried to capture
her essence on canvas and within these words.
Even though there are two people being represented in
a photograph, amateurishly trimmed and pasted to a simple,
white dinner plate, I feel the need to focus on the woman I
never knew as grandmother. What could she have taught me
about having Aboriginal ancestry? Perhaps it was her way, any
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,D. Lynn Daniels

dreams, wishes or desires to be left unspoken. My father never
speaks of her, nor have I ever asked. I sense there is s_o very
much pain. It would be the last thing left to honour. Silently,
and in my heart centre, through Spirit, I pray that grace and
honour be restored to Marguerite, such a beautiful name.

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Dan Ennis
Dan Ennis

The Story of My Childhood Journey In The White Wilderness

Once a beautiful Aboriginal child was born, a child fu]]
of ligh~, life, love and peace. He was innocent and open, fu]]
of passion and joy. He saw light and happiness in everything
and he knew with his heart that was connected to all he saw~
He knew instinctively that he was related to all of Creation and
that he was part of his Earth Mother, a connection that would
last a lifetime. This child of light also knew in his heart that
this connection needed to be nurtured, protected, respected
and observed through ceremonies for a lifetime.
. But, as this child grew older, things began to change as
outside forces bombarded him. By the age of twelve most of
the light, love, peace and sense of connection had been
replaced by fear, isolation, anger and hate. He was becoming
an _adult who forgot about his heart and only used his brain.
This meant he also forgot intuition and the sacred, spiritual
aspects of his being. The spiritual light grew dim. The sacred
part of his being began to shrink and harden. By the time he
was an adult, this sacred part was so small and lifeless, it
s_eemed to be nonexistent. So he lived the next fifteen years
like other adults who had lost their light, and he filled the void
with alcohol or drugs so the pain of his loss would be dulled.
Fortunately for him, there were still people in his life
who retained their connection and light-energy. No matter how
much he tried to ignore or forget them, these people were there
to be his teachers. By now, his father had passed on, but his
mother was still doing what she could to keep her son open to
this light~ene~gy. Then, the woman who would eventually
become his wife was placed in his path to help him open again
to the light.
A~er marriage, the man who had lost his light was
blessed with two sons. These children were as he had once
been, beautiful children full of light-energy and love. But
nothing could return him to those early days of light. Nothing,

until he turned forty-three years of age. At this time he was
forced to undergo surgery. It was in the recovery room after
this operation that the radiant light-energy he had stuffed down
for all those years and covered with hurt and anger finally
managed to surface. It dug its way out of the solid dark,
polluted mass of anger, fear, hate, resentment, rage, ego,
bitterness, helplessness, hopelessness and loneliness-all that
toxic garbage that had accumulated through the years. The
light surfaced to pay him a visit. It came in the form of a
miniature image of himself.
This tiny image came out while the man slipped in and
out of consciousness after the surgery. The tiny person came
out of his left eye and looked around. This small person did
not like what he saw and immediately went back inside
through the same place where he had earlier emerged. Later
that same day, the man got very nauseous. He called for a
nurse and asked for a bed pan. In a short time, he began to
vomit. He vomited for a long time; it felt like hours. Then, he
noticed that the vomit was black in colour, shiny and almost
solid in density. There appeared to be gallons of it!
Unfortunately, the man did not immediately recognize
that the black vomit represented his negative, hate-filled and
fear-filled life. He did not connect with that other self. He was
only glad to put the fearful experience behind him.
The man did not recognize that his thirty years of
wandering in the wilderness of white civilization had left him
feeling lost, confused and fearful. It had taken away his
identity and he no longer knew who he was. He did not
recognize that most of his health problems, drinking problems,
marriage problems, parenting problems, and spiritual
problems, all stemmed from this loss of light-energy and his
connectedness to Earth Mother and all her creatures. For thirty
years he had been trying to make himself into something _he
could never become: a white person. He did not recogmze
what his tiny visitor and all that black vomit were trying to
show him. He could not understand that he was being urged to

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Dan Ennis

let go of all that heavy bag of garbage he had carried for so
long, all the hate, all the fear, all the rage and all the false male
ego that prevented his healing. That meant letting go of the
past.
It was some time after the experience in that recovery
that the man began to look seriously at the traditional
teachings and sacred practices of his people. He began to
actively seek out the Medicine Elders through books and
films, and whenever possible, in person. He began attending
pow wows, traditional gatherings, spiritual gatherings and
spiritual ceremonies. He began to make connections with all of
his personal, marital, family and emotional dysfunctions. He
began to see the self-condemnation, lack of self-esteem and
loss of self-respect that had overtaken him in his attempt to
become someone he could never become. He could never
become white.
Slowly, he began to feel in his heart again. He began to
believe he could have the strength to let go of the past and this
heavy burden he had been carrying for so long. Being a
modem male, having done time in gangs, in the military and
as a competitor is sports teams, he had been conditioned into
thinking of himself as a tough man. That meant he could show
no emotion if he were to be strong and fearless. But, he soon
began to realize that this macho image only hid a very weak,
fear-filled human being. It was with this realization that the
man began to reconnect with the beautiful light-filled child
from so long ago. He began to recognize his sacred connection
the Sacred Earth Mother, all the grandmothers, the aunts, the
mates, the sisters, the daughters, and the granddaughters who
are the life givers.
Through the Medicine Elders' traditional teachings,
and the sacred ceremonies such as the Sweat Lodge
Ceremony, he began to heal and experience tremendous
spiritual growth. That beautiful, spiritual child who had been
born full oflight forty years before had begun his journey back
to the light. Like so many children who arrive in this world as
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T

Dan Ennis

creatures of light and love and peace, a gift from the Creator,
this man had lost his true self through the journey to
adulthood. Man-made religion, laws, and social norms had
robbed him of those sacred birth gifts.
In 1993, Creator blessed this man and his wife with
another very sacred gift. A new spiritual teacher arrived in the
form of a grandson, and immediately he began to teach the
sacred ways of the ancestors. The man who had been unable to
hear the teachings that had come from his two sons sent by the
Creator so long before, was now able to pay close attention to
this new teacher.
Today, it is still difficult for the man who had once lost
his light-energy to hear all this tiny teacher has to bring to him.
Much damage was done to this man by heartless adults,
authorities and institutions in the white wilderness and
sometimes his hearing is still impaired. But his desire for
spiritual growth continues and his spirit continues to heal.
When the grandson was about three years old, the man
experienced a vision of him during a Sweat Lodge Ceremony.
He saw the image of two human beings. One was small and
one much larger and they were walking away from the man
hand in hand. The image evoked feelings of love, safety,
security and protection. The man immediately assumed that
the larger adult male represented himself and the smaller one
represented his grandson. But he was wrong.
At another Sweat Lodge Ceremony, he had a similar
vision. This time the grandson made it unmistakably clear that
the larger human being was not the man but rather the
grandchild. The small child in the vision was instead his
grandfather, this man on his healing journey. Once again,
feelings of safety, security and protection overwhelmed the
man. He was taken back in thought to the times he had walked
hand in hand with those people who had cared most for him as
a child: his grandmother, his grandfather, his mom and his dad.
He felt the security and joy of feeling the hand of all those
persons who believed him to be a special gift. Walking with
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Dan Ennis

them and listening to their voices, had fed that light-energy. He
radiated in their presence. All of these feelings flooded the
man as he experienced this vision in theSweat Lodge.
The grandson made it very clear that the man was,
indeed, the child who needed guidance and protection. The
man needed to feel the security of a loving hand in order to
complete his healing journey. The man began to recognize,
acknowledge and accept this child as his spirit teacher. He
knew this child was a sacred gift with those special powers
given by Creator. This knowledge filled the man's heart and
his spiritual growth began to increase at a much more rapid
pace than he had ever experienced.
Now, with his spirit teacher holding his hand and
guiding him, the man could see and feel his spiritual growth as
he accepted that this healing, changing and growing would be
a lifelong endeavour. And, even though the man could feel the
light again in his heart, he was also sadly aware that much had
been lost. He would never be the same radiant, light-filled,
love-filled teacher who had thrived before all the educators,
religious people, bureaucrats, politicians and other
dysfunctional people had beaten and lied and ignored him as
they systematically extinguished that light so he could
conform to life 'in the real world.' Not during this earthwalk,
at least.
But, today that man knows who he is and where he is
going. He is no longer a small Aboriginal child lost in a white
wilderness. Today, he has learned to love who he is and to let
go of fear. He holds to the assurance that his spirit teacher is
with him, and every day he gives thanks that the long, lonely,
spirit-breaking journey in the wilderness of white civilization
is finally over. Each day he meditates and asks for help from
the powers of the Six Directions that he might remain on the
healing path of life, the red road, and continue to grow
spiritually moment by moment.

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AUTHOR
NOTES

l

Author Notes

Carol Snow Moon Bachofner
Carol Snow Moon Bachofner, Abenaki, writes a regular column in
Fresh Ink, a publication of California Writers Club. She is a mentor
and caucus member of Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers &
Storytellers. In 1999 Carol was named Wordcrafter of the Year.
Recent publications include E. L. F. Eclectic Literary Forum,
Gatherings IX, My Home As I Remember and the Dan Rive
Anthology 2000. Carol teaches poetry workshops online and in the
conference setting.

Win Blevins
Win Blevins' Welsh-Cherokee ancestors came west to Indian
Territory on the Trail of Tears. He now lives in the Four Comers, on
the edge of the Navajo Reservation. He's the author of nine novels,
four books of non-fiction and thousands of articles. His novelistic
biography of Crazy Horse, Stone Song. won the Spur Award and the
Mountain and Plains Booksellers Award for fiction in 1995.

Shirley Brozzo
I am Keweenaw Bay Anishnaabe currently living in Marquette, Ml.
I am employed at Northern Michigan University as the Coordinator
of the Gateway Academic Program, a support program for students
of colour on campus. I also teach in the Native American Studies
Department. For the past two years I have been on the Executive
Board ofWordcraft Circle, and was one of the two founding student
members in 1992.

James Colbert
My fiction in various forms has been translated into seven languages
and distributed in over forty countries. Stories from this same
thematic collection-in-progress have been chosen as a finalist for
STORY'S Carson Mccullers Prize and for a Greensboro Award I
have been published in Flyaway and the Cimarron Review. I have
also been an enlisted Marine, an air controller, a cabinetmaker, a
bartender, a police officer; presently, I am an assistant professor of
English at the University of New Mexico. I am, too, an enrolled
member of the Chickasaw Nation.
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7
Author Notes

Author Notes

D. Lynn Daniels
My name is D. Lynn Daniels. My journey into the art and writing
world has been slow and wrought with insecurity and fear. It was
always suggested that such a pursuit was nonsense (there is no
money in it!), and the need to get a real job was the only solution to
making a living. I believe that by giving voice to my own needs, I
may actually be able to live my life according to Spirit. This is my
vocation and I will persevere until I can no longer hear that voice. I
am becoming an emerging artist and freelance writer living in
Edmonton. I am not being a hypocrite by having a day job as
Managing Editor and publisher for a local publishing firm, as well
as my own business, Angel Studios & Workshop. Am I?

studies books for elementary level students about Anishnaabe
family life in the early 20th century. I teach in the American Indian
Studies and Education departments at the University of Minnesota,
Duluth.

Selina Hanuse
Selina Ruby May Hanuse, age seventeen, was registered through her
mother's line with the Cape Mudge band near Campbell River, BC.
Her father was Nirnkish. Selina is probably best known to the public
for her role as a child actor on the CBC TV show "North of 60". She
was a student at Total Education school in Vancouver and was six
months away from her graduation when she was struck and killed in
a crosswalk Jan. 3, 2000, by a speeding car.

Dawn Dumont
Dawn Dumont, a Cree woman from the Okanese First Nation in
Saskatchewan, is currently living in Toronto. She is a writer of short
stories, screenplays, plays and poems. Poetry remains her first love
and her primary medium of expression. She believes that poetry is a
special language that you can hear only when you listen with your
heart.

Jane Inyallie
Jane Inyallie is Tse'khene from McLeod Lake and a graduate of the
En' owkin School of Writing. She lives in Vanderhoof, BC, and
works at Vanderhoof Alcohol & Drug Services. She spends
summers on the trails of BC hiking with her partner, three dogs, goat
and donkey. They have a beautiful little grandson named Craig.

William George

Ka yen deres

William George is from the Burrard Indian Reserve in North
Vancouver, BC. His poem, "Moment Will Pass" is published in A
Shade of Spring: An Anthology of New Native Writers by 7th
Generation Books and his poem "Blanket Needs" is published in Let
The Drums Be Your Heart, edited by Joel Maki, published by
Douglas & MacIntyre. William also has work published in previous
volumes of Gatherings. He is currently studying Writing at the
University of Victoria.

Elder Kayenderes has been handed her traditional Mohawk
teachings by her ancestors at Six Nations Reservation from the time
she was young. Her true teachers of life are the environment, her
Elders, her tradition, Mohawk culture and the Creator. As a political
activist, she was involved in three armed confrontations. Some of
her professional training is from the University of California at
Davis. She has travelled and lectured internationally and nationally
since 197 5. Her accomplishments include work in areas of
Paranormal psychology, Residential abuse, Art and Music. Her
work with Native Peoples include the US, Canada and Australia.
She recently returned from a working camp in Germany and
lectured at a Women's conference on Native Traditional and Self
Healing for Survival. She states, "At this age, I want to be emerging
like a Yellow Moccasin Orchid. I want my art and my writings to
live in the heart of all peoples. I want to be understood and respected
and heard with my truth. And I wount be put away. "

Linda LeGarde Grover
I am a member of the Bois Forte Band of the Minnesota Chippewa
Tribe, and have published poetry in several collections and
magazines, including the Eclectic Literary Forum, The Roaring
Muse, and the recently published My Home as I Remember by
Native Women in the Arts. I have also co-authored a set of social
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189

--,
Author Notes

Author Notes

Leanne Flett Kruger

Vanessa Nelson

Leanne Flett Kruger is a mixed-blood Anishinaabe/Cree/Metis. She
is presently completing her final year at the En'owkin International
School of Writing, in their First Nations Creative Writing Certifcate
Program.

I was born on October 28, 1986. I have two brothers and no sisters.
I am the youngest. I am Mohawk and French. I speak English and a
bit of French. I like reading.

Margaret Orr
Vera Manuel
Vera Manuel is Secwepemc-Ktunaxa from the Interior of British
Columbia. She is a storyteller, poet, playwright and the founder of
Storyteller Productions which produces creative material addressing
issues of First Nations communities. Vera travels extensively across
Canada and the U.S. facilitating processess of healing from cultural
oppression and multigenerational trauma and grief. Vera has just
completed a new play titled "Every Warriors Song."

Laura A. Marsden
Laura A. Marsden is an Anishinaabe writer and artist from the
Scugog and Rama Reserves in Ontario. During her lifetime, Ms.
Marsden has developed a style which is culturally explicit,
translative of traditional and contemporary mediums. "The art of
writing legends is the scholar's ability to capture the dream, provide
accurate documentation, and acknowledgement of the Elders."

MariJo Moore
MariJo Moore (Cherokee) is the author of Spirit Voices of Bones,
Crow Quotes, Tree Quotes, Desert Quotes, Red Woman With
Backward Eyes and editor of Feeding The Ancient Fires: A
Collection of Writings by North Carolina American Indians. In
1998, she was chosen as NC's Distinguished Woman of the Year in
the Arts. She is founder of Red Woman Creations, INC., a national
non-profit organization (based in Western NC) whose mission is to
promote and preserve American Indian cultures and languages
though the humanities with the focus on American Indian youth.

190

Margaret Orr is a James Bay Cree from Northern Quebec. Her Cree,
Inuit, Scottish and French ancestry has lead her to many places and
experiences. Having spent her childhood on Fort George Island and
the surrounding territory, Margaret learned the importance of nature
from her observations and from the teachings of her Elders. Later,
she went on to college and achieved a Fine Arts degree at CEGEP.
Then on to Saskatchewan where she graduated with a BFA in Indian
Arts at SIFC. That same year, 1998, Margaret travelled with her
three children to Penticton, BC, and studied Creative Writing at the
En'owkin Centre for two years.

Eric A. Ostrowidzki
I am a member of the Abenakis Nation located on the Odanak
Reserve in Quebec. I have a Bachelors and Masters of Arts in
English Literature from McGill University. Presently, I am finishing
up my doctoral degree in Literature at McGill. From 1992-1994, I
taught English in an Adult Basic Education program at Redstone
Reserve in the Chilcotin territory. Since 1996, I have been
developing and teaching the English program at the Institute of
Indigenous Government located in Vancouver. During this period, I
helped to publish an in-house literary magazine entitled Drumbeats.
Currently I am working as a co-host for the IIG radio-show called
Historical and Current Indigenous Perspectives on 102. 7
FM-CRFO.

Suzanne Rancourt
Born and raised in West Central Maine, Suzanne Rancourt is
Abenaki, Bear Clan, and is a USMC and Army Veteran. She is an
internationally published writer, a mentor for Wordcraft Writers'
Circle, a singer-songwriter who has performed nationally, and an
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Author Notes

independent education consultant. Suzanne holds a Master of Fine
Arts in Poetry from Vermont College and a Master of Science
degree in Educational Psychology from SUNY, Albany, NY. She is
the Parent Education Specialist for a Head Start program in northern
NY.

Janet Marie Rogers
Janet is of Mohawk/Tuscarora ancestry living in Victoria, BC. She
has self-published her writings since 1997 to make a series of six
chapbooks to date, under the name, Savage Publishing. Janet enjoys
reading her works publicly and has incorporated movement and
performance into her presentations.

Armand Garnet Ruffo
Armand Garnet Ruffo (Ojibway) is the author of a collection of
poetry, Opening in the Sky (Theytus Books, 1994) and a poetic
biography, Grey Owl: the Mystery of Archie Belaney (Coteau,
1997). A new collection of poetry, At Geronimo's Grave, will appear
in the spring of 2001 from Coteau Books. His plays include an
adaptation of his book on Grey Owl. Ruffo's poetry, stories and
essays have appeared in numerous literary journals and anthologies
including, Voices of the First Nations (McGraw-Hill Ryerson,
1996), Literary Pluralities (broadview, 1998), An Anthology of
Canadian Native Literature in English (Oxford, 1998) Native North
America (ECW, 1999), and An Introduction to Literature (Nelson,
2000).

States as well as internationally. Her educational publications
include a piece in Math and Science Across Cultures, a book
developed through the Exploratorium in San Francisco. Shuck grew
up in a mixed race home. Her father is Tsalagi and her mother is
Polish. She feels that she learned more about communication,
patience and humour in that house than from anything her
experiences at the University gave her. She is trying to pass those
insights on to her three children.

Richard Van Camp
Richard Van Camp is a member of the Dogrib Nation. He is the
author of a novel, The Lesser Blessed, and two children's books: A
Man Called Raven and What's The Most Beautiful Thing You Know
About Horses? illustrated by George Littlechild. His radio play
"Mermaids" was narrated by Ben Cardinal and broadcast several
times for CBC Radio's 1998 "Festival of Fiction."

Gerry William

Amy-Jo Setka is Metis, a happy newlywed who has just completed
two years at the En'owkin Centre and is enrolled at the SUNTEP
program at University of Saskatchewan. I plan to learn my
kohkum's language, Cree, and continue writing.

I was born in Enderby, BC, and am a member of the Spallamcheen
Indian Band. I graduated with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in English
Literature in 197 5 from the University of Victoria. I have spent my
entire adult life working with, and for, First Nations communities. I
have been a Native courtworker, a senior trainer, an executive
director, a teacher and a counsellor. I have also been chair of several
major First Nations organizations, from the B.C. Native Peoples
Credit Union to the Allied Indian & Metis Society. Currently, I teach
at the Nicola Valley Institute of Technology in Merritt, BC. I am
nearing the completion of my Ph.D. Program in First Nations
Studies from the Union Institute in Cincinnati, Ohio. I also chair the
Education Council at NVIT, and am President of the NVIT
Employees Association. I love writing and my latest novel Gust
completed) depicts the history of the North Okanagan at First
Contact.

Kim Shuck

Vera M. Wabegijig

Kim Shuck is a basket artist and educator. She holds an MFA in
textiles. Her baskets have been shown nationally around the United

Vera M Wabegijig is Anishnaabe from Mississauga First Nation in
Ontario. She is from the Bear Clan, twenty-six years old, mother,

Amy-Jo Setka

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Author Notes

ex-En'owkin student, and an ex-UVIC student who now lives in
Vancouver with her partner Larry and their daughter Storm and will
be expecting a new edition in a matter of weeks. Her poetry can be
found in previous Gatherings, Our Words, Our Revolutions, My
Home as I Remember. Breaking the Surface, and an essay in
Reclaiming the Future: Women's Strategies for the 21st Century.

Other Authors

Larry Nicholson
Dan Ennis
Rasunah Marsden

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