poetry by me

"wow kokum, you're so strong!"

We are the souls, spirits, and beings of the natives you did kill

I wish you could see me now, I wish you could see how I've grown

I wish you were here.

74, you would be today.

I wish I could hear your voice, I wish I could hold your hands, I wish you would talk cree to me one last time

It sounded so elegant from your tongue. The language of our people

Its broken and stuttering from mine, I barely know enough words to hold a conversation, but you knew it

I wish you'd have taught me, so I could wish you a happy birthday in your mother tongue

But this is the best I can do

The grey flickers of smoldering sage melting together with wisps of diamond willow fungus dance together like soulmates who have been apart for centuries, moving as one

The tobacco melds with them then, cedar joining soon after

The last to join the smokey reunion of spirits and souls is the sweet grass, braided like my kokum's long black hair back in the days when she was young, crossing the bridge to go to the residential school down the street

the smoke billows, like the medicines were never apart, like the culture wasn't beat from our hands with the very priest's belt that was supposed to find us salvation

Every time you smudge, you are not just cleansing your soul, your space, your area. You are cleansing your ancestors, washing away the abuse, the separation, the loneliness, for their spirits take shelter in the smoke. Their spirits rejoice in the essence of the medicines, proud that their teachings were not forgotten.

Never forget this,

for one day,

You will be the spirit

Dancing in the smoke

Of the smudge.

After all, their blood runs through your veins, their heart beats in your chest, and your soul is their soul.

Just like when she died.

Burying a cremation is the easy part

One doesnt look at that small granite box and think

"wow, this box contains a whole life, a whole person, the person who raised me, my grandmother, her memories, her soft hands and wise voice, the being this box contains is worth more than it could ever hope to be"

I look at that box and think "time to put this in the ground" and after that "I'll hold this cross while dirt piles around the edges"

No, burying a cremation is the easy part

Going to the house is the hard part

Its quiet.

Shes not at the stove cooking.

She's not folding laundry.

She's not out in the yard tearing flower heads off their stems piece by piece like the clips of my heart that crumble every time that I think of that little granite box.

The hard part is when I cant stop the tears from streaming down my face as I stare out the kitchen window, a place she stood often.

And then you walk in.

And I swallow my sorrow.

Because I know that you,

the man she lived with and loved for 50 years, the man she raised her children with, started a business with, loved her grandchildren with, the man that took her away from her father,

You are feeling much worse.

But now.

I enter the house.

You are not sitting in your chair.

You are not laying in your bed.

Your cane is against the wall, untouched.

The TV is off.

Everything is quiet, for the first time in 50 years.

You are not the reason I swallow my sorrow now,

You are the reason I have sorrow to swallow in the first place.