(Magpie) Language of the Heart

I constructed this poem sometime in 1998 or 99 and at that time had been aware of my brother’s contracting the HIV virus for (just under) 10 years – he’d been living with it years longer. I tried to workshop it in a UBC creative writing class right after I wrote it because I liked it but I could never get through it.

My brother Kelly was called Magpie because he was brash, loud, occasionally a pest…and beautiful. He and I spent time together in the same foster home as very small children and I remember us constantly running away and every time (for some reason) taking off our shoes and socks (which always made them SO mad, lol). We were split up for this and I was not to see him again until we were grown men by which time he had become ill.

It would be a lie to say we got along well all the time though we did have our moments. On rare occasions we sat up all night drinking at the rez and regaled each other with our exploits and daring adventures. The other end of our experiential equation is that for subtle and deep reasons we could almost never seem so get along. I was needful but not in the same way as when we were children and he clearly had basic needs of a kind we intuitively understood could not be met. On some level, I believe we were resentful towards each other for apparently leaving the other way back when (which of course is ridiculous), while at the same time angry at ourselves for feeling powerless to help someone (your own brother) so clearly in need of help. This kind of anger, frustration and unresolved feelings of futility are so prevalent in our community that it can make people lash out at whoever is near. My brother and I fought at a house party on the rez (which I had invited him to as a means of reconciliation). I came away from that encounter with a broken ankle and today I wear the incident as a badge of honor in some circles, and in others, it provides clear evidence of the the fact that often it is hurt people who hurt people.

It so happened in the palliative care ward of an Edmonton hospital one night (as outside a late spring blizzard was subsiding) that I was alone with Kelly for the last time in this life. Due to weather, timing and grace it was just my brother and I. These were the days of SARS-related health concerns and so hospital staff insisted visitors don all manner of protective-wear (latex gloves, gown, mask and cap) which of course I removed once we were alone soon after midnight. He was far past any ability to speak or communicate but I was aware he could understand me because tears would stream from the waxy hollows where his eyes had once been as I began to speak as I felt compelled to do once we were alone. I thanked my brother for looking after us as little boys in the best way he could and told him how good he looked (Magpies crave attention, you see) and how lucky he was to soon be with everyone who had come before us. His hands were cold as I held them and told him I had written a poem about him and though I could only remember the last part I would recite what I had memorized (the stanza beginning: in my dreams – we are boys again…)

It was, as mentioned, his last night on earth but it is the best of him which with stays with me, informs me, guides me, comforts and protects me. He is still my big brother. It is special on a personal scale but it feels like a blessed and pre-destined thing to have been with Kelly and to have been able to look after him, if only once and to know for certain there was love in his final moments. Art can be transcendent at times and is, I believe, spiritual practice.

Ekosi





Magpie

Carrying tobacco
and colored prints of fabric
I stand barefoot in wet grass -
traffic drowns out the sound of my voice
but I am speaking
and I am looking to the sky

Saying that you have gone south
and you still have the gun with you,
they promise me they will catch up to you
(who is to punish them for their crimes?)
I would believe them were it not for the knowledge
that none has ever been able to catch up with you
so hard and fast do you run -
and I am wary of promises

It has never been the way between us to agree
but tonight,
I want you to keep on running

With clenched teeth
and fists
I demand answers
(where there are none)

I demand answers!

In every direction that I look for you
I see faces committed to forgetting,
dedicated to relegating us to mere “social
constructs,” rejecting antithetical images
of what they think Indians are

we are:
boys stolen at 2 and 6 years old
boys raised by strangers without black hair, and then
boys who return home as strange men
boys sharing a mother poisoned by prescriptions
boys whose cousins hang in trees
boys finding uncles with shotgun holes in them
boys who have not forgiven their fathers – only forgotten them
boys who are bleeding


In my dreams
we are boys again
and running barefoot through city streets
our shoes discarded
It must be that you remember
a place worth running to -
I am scared
but you are older
and I will follow you anywhere

Magpie,
you are that dark bird
wounded,
singing in the dead of night
waiting your whole life for a moment to arrive

Tonight
I can feel a cold wind at my back
on this wind
will you fly over gray fields?
your feathers long, blue and black
along the river’s silent edge will you soar?

If only one good memory
is left in our hearts
I will meet you there


©2012 Champsteen Publishing

Honour Song (poem)...

Peace, my friend,
peace

there is no darkness, only not knowing

so pray…and believe

and I think I can see you –
I can see those brown eyes half on their way to heaven
I look with sight more honest
than my eyes deliver
I listen to you, to your songs
(some unchanged in a thousand years)
with something more true
than my ears can hear
Walk with me awhile
with something more real
than the touch of my hand upon your shoulder

Here, together
there is no more turning away
there is no more tearing ourselves in two
If there is any comfort here for you
know that I too am sick with my experience
I marvel at the strange rivers we have crossed
rivers on whose far banks lie forests
where men, women and children are lost
we seek shelter
and someone with that look in their eye
though our hearts may have grown weary
and just a little shy

In another life
I may have brought bridled horses and game –
for you, for your family
and spoken of good things between us and Nations
For a night or two
I might have stayed outside your lodges
with those horses, and waited
sleeping only after you and yours had done so first
perhaps I carried a powerful bundle or shield –
carried them for everyone

Yet today,
we are here, together
Though there may still be an aching sadness –
for those ones crossed over –
they are not gone – they do not sleep
but have awakened from the dream of life
(as spirits live forever)
It is we who stumble
through these stormy visions
chasing phantoms and madness
Must we still decay and wither
and fall each day with our fear, shame and grief? –
our days before this
little more than cold hopes?

Then pray…and believe

The Oldest One remains
Many will change and pass
but there is a light that forever shines
and while Earth’s shadows fly
our hearts will be opened wide

And when I fall –
when I am caught down deep, beyond all reach
I will keep you safe with me, like a warm wind
like a sweet waterfall

When I close my eyes I see you –
you are walking on a bridge
glancing over the mysterious water
there is still a trace of fear
but I can also see that you know
there is something better
yes, you know there are things better
than to live in dark water

And after all this,
when some gentle night descends
when there is, at last, stillness
when you are no longer alone at sea
but close to my heart
I will look to the West
to see a great and glorious red sky – an eternal sky

I will whisper things sacred
like…hear me
like…remember
like…your name,
and I will wonder
if you too can see that same red sky

...What The People In Africa Gave Me...

As one who writes I seek to convey meaning and hopefully have something useful to say from time to time. So it was then that I recently heard a story told by Anna, a Native (Indian) woman, who provided me and about 20 others various instruction and training. This woman has been in the field of wellness for years and years and was one of the first qualified in trauma work and has been all over the world learning, teaching and helping. A few years ago she and few others traveled to isolated communities in Central and East Africa that had been ravaged by war, sickness and brutality of every description. They came trained and prepared to do work in trauma and grief as many had seen family killed right before their eyes by military and tribal authorities and henchmen. Anna reported to us that one day they entered a village and were introduced to survivors and when the interpreter explained that the woman was Native and from North America, a great clamor arose. Anna was puzzled because upon the introduction and explanation of who she was, the group grew very anxious and excited but it was unclear what the nature of this excitement was about. Several villagers even ran off. As the helpers began explaining what they were there to do 2 elderly women were brought forward by those who had run away and they seemed desperate for Anna’s attention. They wanted to know, specifically, if it was true that Anna came from where they said. “Are you truly from North America? Are you really a Native person from there?” The elderly women were very emotional and it took some time though the interpreter to explain the validity of my friend’s words about her origins. When my friend confirmed through nods and affirmative signs that what they were hearing was so, the women began to wail and one actually fell to the ground. The 2 women then summoned the courage and asked if they could touch Anna, that is, they wanted to place their hands on her. Now Anna’s been to a lot of places, experienced many things and is an elder herself but even she was unprepared for what this gesture was about but she permitted it without question. As the women moved forward and gently placed their hands on Anna, her head, shoulders, her arms and so on, the woman began sobbing again uncontrollably as did the whole group of assembled villagers. It was explained to Anna later that for many years the people were brutalized repeatedly by authorities and terrorized with a very specific threat. They were told: do as we say for if you do not, when the Americans arrive, we’ll have them do to you what they did to the Indians there - they will exterminate you and you will cease to exist. These people lived under the idea that there were no longer indigenous people in North America, that they (we) were all dead. The people of the village were awed by the sight of my friend Anna who told them that Indians are living and that there are many in many places all over the continent. It began to emerge during her time there that the tyrants used this threat to get their compliance and to instill in them the fear of annihilation. It was explained that the elderly ladies had been under this fearful impression so long that only the placing of their hands upon Anna could prove to them that she was real and that there was truth in her words that she was who she said she was. To actually touch someone they thought never existed filled them with overwhelming gratitude and most precious of all…hope. The old women cried and cried and cried because they had forgotten what it felt like to have hope. Anna embodied the hope that their people might survive. As they explained it, if Indians, living under the most powerful nation on earth with the mightiest army and the mightiest weapons could survive and flourish then might they also? They were told we were all dead and how were they supposed they know otherwise? - when living and dying is in the balance day in day out your entire life - when loved ones were arbitrarily beaten or killed in front of you or simply taken away never to return. Anna reports how heart-wrenching it was to leave because the idea of safety is so precarious for these people that naturally they were afraid and didn’t want her to go.

I am the type of person deeply affected by stories like this. It is a powerful thing to feel connected somehow to people I will likely never meet but who I honor in one of the only ways I know how. The simple fact that I exist and that my being alive can be so deeply important to a group of gentle Africans a world away speaks to what I refer to as the immensity and potency of the soft power we carry.

I love this life.

© 2010 Champsteen Publishing