Debts Unpaid
The breath of settlers’ children
warmed our one-room schools
scent of wet wool
frost-flowered window-panes
blank faces waiting
to be mapped with knowledge
We, their descendants, learned
to fashion maps
of water, salt and flour
moulded Laurentian Shield
painted it pink
learned about war
learned how to think
The music of Niagara
falls rhythmic from our tongues
We feel the Native Spirit of the Past
Muskoka, Mississauga, Manitoulin,
Nipissing . . .
Too numerous to list
these gifts that last
Though cadence of First Nation names
is something we hold dear
their land claims go unsettled
year after trying year
by Norma West Linder
Norma grew up on Manitoulin Island. From what I can see, Natives outnumber white people on the island, so all islanders know members of the various tribes.
Norma will be most happy to see her “Debts Unpaid” appear in Umbrella. It initially appeared in her book Morning Child, and was later re-printed in Adder’s-tongues: A Choice of Norma West Linder’s Poems.
1 comment:
Hi there folks. I wanted to share a poem I wrote for Al Purdy. Perhaps I'll be able to red it this summer at the next Riffs and Ripples. All the best, Denis Robillard, Windsor.
Marysburg Vortex
“Past deeds are dust, and we are children of the dust, not judges.”
Alfred Purdy
Somewhere in the Marysburg Vortex
a colony of wet shipworm teredos
eat away vestiges of fir boards
the copper insides of the good ship Speedy
gnaws at the memory of petrified ancient wheel gears.
Theodolite, Gunter chains
hadometers and the cercle Hollandais
come full circle
fade asleep in your broken bones
Fish dart about dead machinery
labyrinthine grottos like playthings
inhabit the eyes of these now forgotten men--
Cochrane, Stegmann, Ogotonicut.
Somewhere below green murk and water
washed over tangled weeds
crabs amble slowly towards new food
fish glide through fresh currents
as luminescent flesh swells,
and tissue which is seamless and dark
is gnawed and tattered
by water history.
Post a Comment