The Writers' Collective

Happy Louis Riel Day Manitobans!

~ And a beautiful Family Day to the rest of the country – except for our poor poor friends in BC who have to be at work/school today!!!

So in celebration of the day – I will post a poem I finished recently and read at the last Aboriginal Writers Collective circle this past Thursday at St. John’s Library. The poem is a little “angry halfbreed” of me – I tend to do that – but posted here with happy thoughts to all!

~

when Louis Riel went crazy

after the Red River Rebellion of 1869

Louis Riel went crazy, he ran off and hid

in a bush along the Seine, a land that jutted

out into the stream, a place

everyone called Vermette’s point, a thick

mass of thin trees, next to a narrow

slot of ploughed land, and a meek

farm house, a brief place, nondescript

but the prideful home of my great –

great uncle and aunt

Riel stayed there a month, a long

month when the spring

spread out slowly

separating him from his “crimes”

and my aunt left food at the bush’s edge

for him, bannock lard and meat on an old tin plate

a meal for a dog, or

a “rebel”

something he would have to hurry to

so the foxes didn’t get there first

some say that’s where Louis took

the name David, where in

his cold, hungry penitence

God spoke to him, gave him

his divine purpose

and a middle name

when Louis Riel was hanged in 1885

my great-great uncle had no land, Manitoba

had become a province, and Canadian

surveyors came in, Métis

farms were dissected,

bisected, halved, quartered,

over and over again until

nothing was left, only

a square to balance one foot on

for only one second

before they all fell over

Ottawa took it all by then, all

those half breed homesteads, ribbon lots not

“properly bought” were sold, and my

ancestral uncle’s home was pulled

up from under him like a rug, a rug

rolled up from the river’s edge all the way

to the road, tucked under

Canada’s collective arm

and chucked on a eastbound train

with all the other rugs, all the other

rolled up land that became tidy

cylindrical tokens, conquered

presents to be presented

to John A, nothing more than

rolled up grass like pressed cigars

he lit up and smoked

til they were spent

there is still a place called Vermette, just

southeast of Winnipeg, land locked but

not far from the river Seine, it has

a postal code, a store and a sign because

they let us use the names of our dead

as if that means

we’re allowed to honour them

and we do not forget our dead, we know

where they are and sometimes, we pull

them out of the ground like relics

we brush them off and wonder

at their possibility, like rotting bulbs of some

rare and fragile orchid, we tend to them

all winter and put them back

into the earth come spring with nothing

more tangible than hope to

make them flower

our names are scattered

seeds all over this

mother land, fathers’ names

sons’ names

Ritchot

Beliveau

Beaupre

just words long lost of meaning

Dumont

Desjarlais

Debuc

Leduc

south side street signs, markers

Tourenne

Turenne

Traverse

Trembley

this city is a graveyard

Guimond

Guiboche

Guibault

Gautier

my conquered people, these

children of bereft sons who

once thought themselves so grande

they had the nerve to create

a province

Carriere

Charriere

Chartrand

Cote

dead names breathing

thin dusty life

and Riel

Riel

everywhere Riel

we are intertwined within

this city, as if we belong

as if we are honoured

~

Katherena Vermette