Long Canoes Poems
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This poem was inspired by the interviews by Earl K. Pollon and S. S. Matheson conducted with native Sekanni peoples who were negatively effected by the flooding of their communal homelands by the building of the W.A.C. Bennett Dam. “This Was Our Valley” tells that story of injustice. 640 square miles of riverfront and hunting territory would be flooded to form Williston Lake. The Sekanni peoples were driven from their ancestral homeland in northeastern British Columbia, Canada and dispersed.
The Shopping Cart Injustice
People, place and spirit
All were our relations
Biopeds, quadrupeds, winged or finned -
River language told us so.
Fishing rocks spoke the run
Where the riffles and the rapids talked.
Ancestors, dead and alive, told living stories where
Running the river banks, the children played.
The land was a book written in forms.
We made our mark with love, community
Fishing weirs, aspen dugout canoes,
Hunting trails, camps and sacred sites.
Always traders, we traded furs with
White settlers when they arrived
On the rivers Parsnip, Finlay and Peace at
Finlay Forks, Fort Grahame, Fort McLeod.
We added pack trains, teams of pack horses
River freighters, flat bottom ‘longboats’
For supplies and for mail delivery.
It seemed that we could live together.
Then one day a government agent said
That shopping carts were coming
They would flood our world
Water rising everywhere
Shopping carts with electric can openers
Full, fast to check out,
Shopping carts with electric hair blowers,
Full, faster to check out,
Shopping carts with electric air conditioners,
Full, fastest to check out
Shopping carts with electric stoves.
Check out, check out, check out.
They would make our rivers into a lake
We would move or drown.
Our elders did not believe it.
That was the only consultations!
Soon Saskatoon berries all under water
Next, the banks sloughed back to graveyards
Next, cliffs crumbled, and banks fell into rising lake
Houses of the villages slipped and floated
Coffins, bones and bodies strewed the shore
Where tangled trees, debris and more
Eddied with flotsam in the wind.
We wept for our ancestors!
We weep for our children.
We had to flee the destruction
Caused by tree grinders, D-9 bull dozers
The dam construction.
Now they want to take more
Another dam for more shopping carts.
Please stop Site ‘C’.
How can we not have this conversation
where footprints of the poor vanish
beneath the boots of investors,
and the river sings only
to those who can afford its luxury?
In Chobe, the elephants roam free,
but people walk caged in poverty.
We call it coexistence
when tusks are protected,
but mothers bury their sons
gored near neglected kraals.
And no one comes
unless it's a game drive
and the victim is not black.
How can we not speak
when the lion's roar is louder
than a widow's cry for compensation?
When leopards eat goats
and ministries write reports not cheques?
Let's talk about the five-star smiles
that greet foreign tongues
while the Batswana mop floors, serve beer, and sleep on concrete after ten-hour shifts.
Let's talk about uniforms and pay slips
that smell like servitude,
contracts folded into silence
in offices lined with antelope heads.
And let's speak of the racism
how a Black woman was shot by a white woman
who said, "I thought it was a monkey."
As if her body was a silhouette of threat.
As if Blackness is always a blur
on the edge of someone else's comfort.
The river bore witness, but the law shrugged,
and headlines softened the bullet.
Let's talk of fishermen
banished from their birthright,
told their canoes spoil the view,
that their laughter scares the tourists,
that their presence is pollution.
Let's speak of lodge owners
who toss insults like breadcrumbs
to those who clean their sheets
lazy, slow, replaceable.
No chains, but contracts.
No slurs, just smiles
with knives beneath them.
We cannot be quiet
when the sun sets
behind lodges built on lies,
and the river is fenced
not for safety, but exclusion.
How can we not speak
of the politics of permits,
where land is leased
like livestock,
and council seats are auctioned
to the highest foreign bidder?
Corruption blooms like water hyacinth,
choking life from the roots
of communal trust.
The sand knows.
The baobabs know.
Even the crocodiles know
how long we've swallowed
our own tongues
to protect the myth of peace.
So let us talk.
Let us gather in the heat
of midday truth,
where no luxury air-con hums.
Let us speak until the sky listens,
until justice stalks this land
as fiercely as the wild.
Because silence, here,
is complicity.
And we have been quiet
for far too long.
Form:
Exracted from Gerald Nforche's Epic, The Slave's Tale
-Duala, RIOS DOS CAMEROES, 1787-
One fine morning, when love birds flew and sang
And the valleys with every gaiety rang,
The sun just setting from a misty east
We had visitors from the waters’ midst.
Our fishermen were out spreading their nets
Though broken, could entangle fish’s legs
When they saw at the horizon, approaching
A large house, like none ever seen, smoking.
Smoke exited from large horizontal
Mouths, like some fire within wood and metal.
Very huge flapping leaves hung on large ropes
Made us shiver, staggered with every lope.
And as the large house ebesse approached
Our fine archers were ready for the broach:-
Scouts scanned from the nearest hill and informed
The djanewa for any quick reform.
Village criers had announced the fall ’f war
Within which those who could lift arms no more,
Women and children wide-eyed with fear
Were evacuated to our secret lair.
And in the waters deep ebesse stopped
Emitting a loud cry: come watch us hop
Our blood about to clot from our within:-
Wood and metal kicking, crying in the wind.
Many canoes splashed into the waters
And creatures with sacks fell in from ladders
And rowed towards us, towards our very shores.
We kept the watch, canoes following a course.
Minutes soon, at the very shores they came
We watching baffled, belligerent lame.
Fifteen they were, hairy, brown and long nosed
Not unlike pale pigs in the valleys noosed.
Large brown bowls perched on their massive heads,
Noted by us as they poured out in herds
From their dancing canoes. Pipes hung from mouths
As tobacco was devoured and feet jingled loud.
And we understood they were some traders:-
We had heard their chilling news from gossipers
Who’d spoken of the magic of these men
Who had come by wind, traded and returned.
And from the gossip that ran a-wild,
We‘d gathered the name made for them from sight:
They looked burnt, like they were once like us
We called them mokala for we were at a loss.
With the prodigious group were our brothers:
We shared the same skin, they were no rioters
Save they spoke with mokala like mutineers:-
We watching, bemused straining with all ears.
A troop marched forward expressing might
Mokala watching unsettled, wide-eyed
Befuddlement on their very black lips:
Pity spelled in their eyes, daggers on their hips.
In the green Adirondack foothills lies
the haven of our old summer camp,
once a place of adventure and outdoor joy,
and the loud cries of precocious scamps,
their energy you never could tamp,
scurrying ’round on small, rapid feet,
leaping into the pond without a beat.
I remember coming here myself,
gazing up at the grand totem pole,
the mess hall with fieldstone fireplace,
where countless tall-tales were told,
and lordy, was the pond bitter cold!
There was a trading post for candy, snacks,
and toilets which all amenities lacked…
To scampering kids it felt like we were
far off in a rugged wilderness,
that tall white pines just rolled on
in a vast and uncharted forest,
and we were just the ones to explore it!
The only sign of steel on our trails
was a pair of rusted, forgotten trial rails.
Then I came back here as an adult
and found the revelry was long passed,
the town had bought up all the old camp,
no kids raced swiftly ’cross the grass,
it had been too good of a place to last,
folks blamed it on poor demographics,
cell phones, and parents afraid of risk.
I suppose I should be thanking the town,
because the made the space into a park,
at the very least it will be preserved,
even though it’s missing that old spark,
and youngsters sprinting ’round on a lark,
they’re even cleared out some new ground…
by tearing half the rustic buildings down.
The trading post, now a picnic pavilion,
the staff cabins now an empty field,
the docks pulled up and carted away,
the pond belongs now to minnows and eels,
not entirely sure how I feel,
out there we swam and swamped canoes,
now it’s blocked off from public use.
The mess hall, at least, is still standing,
they say it’s becoming a historic sight,
but to see it still present, all alone,
somehow just doesn’t feel all that right,
with its clap-board fading in bright sunlight,
at least the boat-house still rises near,
though it’s probably collapse within the year.
I turned away in a very glum mood,
made my way to my car rather slow,
thinking of all I had done here
that my children are never going to know,
there are few places like this left to go.
it brings a well-known though to my mind:
Damn you, damn you, damn you time!
Sitting here at my desk
Two hundred meters above
I watch the bustle of life below.
The slow moving traffic, the crowd at lunch-time
Pedestrians at the traffic lights
Heavy blue-black glass blocks towering to the skies.
In this austere concrete jungle.
A few patches of green in-between asphalt ones
A blue gum tree here and an ashen eucalyptus there
At the corner of the street.
My thoughts flee from this stifling claustrophobia
Thousands of miles away.
To the sugar sands where once we walked
In the warmth of an ever-summer sun.
Blue-green waves tumbling with unrestrained energy
Shores framed by coconut palms dense green
Stretching in an unbroken line to the horizon.
Cries of the seagulls mingle
With the deafening roar of the waves.
The shells were still white-foam laced
When we picked them from the wet sand.
Salty breeze carrying our laughter away
As we watched the fishing canoes come in
Riding on the waves.
Remember when we walked through
Golden paddy fields of ripening grain.
To sit under the ancient banyan tree by the river
Watching the canoes slide past
Carrying coir and spices from villages afar.
Trekking up mountain-paths
And down lush tea slopes.
We gathered wild jasmines and gooseberries
And sat by gurgling streams listening
To the cow herd's flute in the distance.
Returning at the peep of stars
We stood by the gate
Under the deep blue velvet folds of the sky
Listening to the rhythmic clanging of heavy chains
As the local saw mill elephant
Passes on her way back from the woods.
The air is heavy with the scent of gardenias
Only the chirping of crickets, the hum of mosquitoes
And the gentle brushing of palm leaves
Breaking the cool stillness of the night.
And, I return to the vast plains of this southern land.
Breezes that blow unchecked
From coast to coast
Over blue mountain ranges
And great red monoliths
And the sun at its mightiest here.
Unique life forms, sweet smelling gum trees,
Picturesque shores that line the coasts.
Countryside stretching to the horizon
In the flattest continent of the world.
Special this land in every way
Its beauty and curiousness of life.
The land I have come to love
The place I now call home.
Herons fragment the mist,
appear and disappear while remaining motionless.
The skiff rocks as a coal barge trundles past.
A dewy sky shivers.
Nowadays he just sits in a boat looking at Ohio.
This morning the sun reached the top of a willow
and got stuck.
He rowed toward the bank thinking to get under the tree,
filled an imaginary pipe full of tangy river smoke,
sucked on the wet air
as he watched the tree struggling with the sun.
For a while it was a tussle, then the willow shook itself
and the sun slipped away like an unmoored ketch.
At first, the sun just hovered like a blanched balloon
then it found a window above the mounded smother
and it rose up like a Choctaw bass
about to mouth a trill of small fry.
He was near to the shore now,
Ohio slanted down to meet him
cattails and reeds scratching the aluminum hull.
A couple of mallards jumped out of nowhere
and flew over his eyes. The clatter of wings
ruffled the chill bank where a dank light had sunk.
His mind followed them for some time
until they settled deep down
amid a wraith-wrapped Kentucky.
A heron slowly rowed the wind
stirring up the vaporous air, Patches of clarity
drifted across sky-high filtering puddles.
Ohio becomes a river town, the huddled houses
have scuttled their roofs upon soggy pathways.
The mossy hulks of an abandoned industry
wallow in a foggy backwash.
Castaway wharfs drip a spatter and smear,
a hand me down script of a yesteryear.
A small blue-collar marina,
beer cans roll on swaying pontoons,
a couple of dry docked rowboats
and canoes.
Truck tires thump harbor chains.
Someone is up early, someone else watches him
gut and clean a large flathead.
On the damp dock cats circle the bones and scales
creep through the miasma
their fur wet and glistening eyes flashing a liquid silver.
The catfish is naked and shorn of the river
a thing to be watched least it return to life
as something beyond the ken of cats and fishermen.
On the ramp he hitches up his straggling life
and drives away from a berth awash
with the haunted cries of Loons and Redtail’s.
Soon he will be back in the patched-up pockets of Ohio
where corn husks snag hoarfrost and rattle
in a fresh rinsing breeze.
We are hours into the mountain riverway, the current unfriendly to us
paddling earlier had simply strained the men to burning exhaustion,
those who have the shoulder strength are paddling the two larger canoes
while the other six vessels are being pulled along in the side shadows with elk skin rope,
their feet and ankles paying the price,
an incredible sight is rapidly, dramatically coming towards us,
two hundred yards from where the river bends
an unmanned horse is galloping in our direction
with a confident craze in it's agility as it stomps through the rocky mud shore to the left,
running like a messenger of madness, reckless and unstoppable in passion,
a white, grey spotted horse, mane long, white and smoking in the wind,
it has already run past my canoe 50 yards off shore
but Sheild's canoe, being pulled very close to it's path
and McNeal has gotten a rope to lasso this animal,
in trying to claim it they have only sped the horse's instincts
McNeal nearly trampled, has gotten a face full of rock water for his effort,
that beauty is long gone, but everyone saw the sign,
the hip of the horse had a skull, and crossbones of rifles painted in black,
suffice it to say our hearts are humpin hot!
down here where we are predictable targets confined to the river's warpath
in order to saddle up on the upcoming banks some of our men must remain exposed
everyone else has rifles lead ready and hugged, telescopes spying space,
Clark and I kneeling with plank boards for armor, rifles in hand
Sacagawea standing inbetween us at the nose of our trespassing vessel
breasts uncovered, her son Jean in her arms swaddled in a U.S. flag
repeating a Shoshone lyric of peace, her clarion voice of sincere spirit
echoing through the mountain passes like an angel of sapphire wisdom
in this methodical moment of cautious maneuver
I realize that I love her,
I love her like eyes love color,
she is so above the ordinary, so forbidden to me,
we must clarify to the unseen onlookers that we are no warparty
but that we are no laundry squaws either,
20 minutes later we find a suitable shore line and disembark swiftly,
there be no indication of Indians, no presence of hostility,
J.A.B.
I'm ready if you are.
Steadily walking past wekas, canoes, sailboats, motorboats, along concrete paths, down ash-felt slopes
Across intersecting car trails
Drawn only by the beckoning beach.
Feet slipping over Northland's rough green grass
Damp, spongy, smooth grit of coarse golden sand
Surrounding bush covered hill houses
Silently call your name, drowning out the cicadas.
'Where are you? Did you come?
I'm ready if you are.’
Sinking into still water
Invited into the giant’s bathtub
Slowly sit, deep ideas, deep tides
Run rocks between my toes, sandals
Nesting dotterel, raucous red billed gulls dive bomb
Cute little scoundrel of a dog, owning the beach.
Gaze on other swimmers, friendly laughter hastens
Early morning dippers, holiday makers, with quiet chat, Slipping away, back to their working day,
Driving uphill to Russell, leaving quiet Tapeka Bay.
'Would you love it here?' Smile.'
Dumb question, who wouldn't?'
'I'm ready if you are.'
Deep soundings, cool water
Your name echoes silently from windless hills.
I grab my towel, dislodge stones from my sandals
Guide myself blindly up the streets and hill,
Steady along concrete paths, past canoes,
Pausing in the doorway to a soft bed where I find you.
Dry weeping salt from my eyes
'I'm ready if you are..'
Sleep confused, “Where did you go?''
'...to the beach'
Standing tall above your sleeping form
Hope listens, living breaths,
Hope listens, silent non response
Hope falls, body turns away
Breath, mouth, not ready to start their day.
Unspoken questions fall only
on sleeping stroke-fatigued ears.
Standing there, alive, energised,
'I'm ready if you are.'...Not!
'If you are not ready now
Where will I find you? Where will I find you later?
Will I find you later?
Arisen, alive, leaping energetic, with laughter
Smiling, saying 'Come swim with me!'
Hope turns to fantasy.
Outside along the concrete path
Wekas linger
Towels, togs swing in the bush edged clothesline
Canoes rest
Awaiting the excitement of days spent ploughing through the water.
Tears linger
Sounds of the shower
Washing the salt away.
February 2017
The paddlewheel unloads people,
tourists who were out on a cruise,
above the docks and the gift shops
the brown palisades come in view.
(The canoes draw up on the beach,
Iroquois out looking to trade,
in the fort the merchants gaze on,
guns and metal they’ll send their way.)
The families walk to the gate,
the young boys humming joyously,
his place is out of story-books,
with so many cool things to see.
(The Mohawks bring their wares inside,
redcoats guards above, quite alert,
they’re supposed to be allies but
keeping an eye out doesn’t hurt.)
They run around the great courtyard,
to the stocks, the well, the wagon,
local youths, dressed up are their guides,
explaining how things were once done.
(The bargaining goes back and forth,
local guides translate what is said,
both sides want the best of the deal,
squabble for all that they can get.)
One the wall kids climb the cannons,
pretend that they’re soldiers of old,
parents ready to pull them back
if, like all kids, they get too bold.
(The big guns look out on the lake,
they know that the French are out there,
these Mohawks came out of the north
so it pays for folks to beware).
The young ones scamper down the walls,
duck into buildings now and then,
the parents tried to read the signs,
but they can’t, since they’re minding them.
(The young man walks a lonely path,
takes the steps, makes sure to go back,
if officers see him slacking
then he knows he will get the lash.)
They get through the gift shop intact,
a battle for parents, it’s true,
pile into the mini-van,
kids asleep in an hour or two.
(The Mohawks head back with their haul,
still hours until they make camp
while merchants stretch out beaver skin,
they never can sate the demand.)
The family goes back to its life,
vacation over for the year,
miles away safe in their homes,
they have little reason to fear.
(The fort remains every watchful,
in a wilderness dark and stern,
not knowing that within a year
all of those tall timbers will burn.)
Nested like treasures priceless, eagle parents watch over the brood
On an island far away from the city, I beheld in a vision of azure blue
A rural settlement in waste laying, arid with black bile
A desolate, decaying riverine pride
Above sunken war canoes and ores only dead men mine
Tricked and deprived of life,
Numb but not from the rum they had drunk while on Earth
Now with the blood drained from their faces and their skins ashen
I saw nearly all their sinews rot away in split seconds
And their peaceful joy was pillaged
Yet unerring, inert, and grave quiet
In abundance of wealth they stayed barren
Cold, and stalled
Never had I seen such looping stagnancy,
Their fire had no warmth or vigor
Never had I seen such perfection made otiose by life's rigor
I asked the meaning of the spirit who carried me and one vocalized
Your ancestors require light they cite
The blood of brothers and virgins recite
Tears that never dry until honor is given to their sacrifice
And their bones are brought up to rest through rites
Shall there be feasting made to honor these who fought for heritage?
They knew not Christ
Gutty in the face of drowning deepness
With none to cheer them on with sweetness
If their lives become a graceful adage
Shall they also be examples to our young?
Shall their stories not be told around great bonfires?
Shall their odes not be sung at evenings?
As they dine with the gods by whom they're sired
Who shall reverse their unworthy demise?
Who shall carry them to sleep in the warmth of the land they sunk for?
They who stood to hold the bows for their hearthstone
And suffered the ravaging of foes, even reptilian fate
Possessing virtues in excess yet killed like beings worthless
Dying with seeds unplanted, and many wrested
Their houses are like deserts, their fields are barren and corrupted
Their spirits are rejected for the paths they travelled
Who shall lift their curses of hell and squander?
Who shall reach them now?
Who shall heal their broken spirits in the world after?