the Reverend Canon Atwater spends
considerable time setting it up:
the younger boys kneel
in the spiky November grass
despite their good suits
the older ones, support crew,
form a zigzag line behind
a latticework fence the backdrop that almost hides
the brick of the school
burned to the ground in ’29
as the shutter clicks Freddie Bird tucks
his head down and forward
hands clutched together in front,
laughter in his chest,
while Alex Moosemay grins out of his skin
face turned
to greet the prairie sky
little Hector on the other side of Freddie,
his one knee forward, chin tilted up
anxious, as if he wants in
on the joke
or might tell
I’m telling you now
it’s November
1927, that time
they shared a laugh
those boys
at the school beside the blue sloughs
in the heart of the Touchwood Hills
Girl with the Short Hair
if I wanted to describe the girl to you in a poem I might say the short-haired one but they’ve all got short hair and she’s more than that anyway not just a part of the girls’ class making yet another snowman or in dry summer hanging out near the single tire swing looking bored with something clutched in front of her smock, one hand holding it while the other hand plucks at whatever it is, grass or a flower she’s not only a part of this but a “break away,” an individual she has a name but history hasn’t recorded it the curly-haired girl then? surely there must be something better but really they’re all so uniform in their black and white photos oversized winter coats sloppy cotton self-sewn dresses and smocks
more like the one with the easy stance left shoulder dropped carelessly as if in this restless time of year she might turn at any moment and run—but it’s not what you think, it’s not to run away from the school like the others but because it’s in her bones to lope under the prairie sky to slap her feet down on the long grasses and across the short weeds that stretch endlessly for miles in all directions now this is more like it there she is, the breathless one the one with the wind-knotted hair
Miss Atwater’s Class
hats askew and mitts bejewelled
with snow, coats open
to the weather, the girls play
in the shadow of the school, just inside
the invisible fence line
they make snowmen and snowwomen
while a huddle of trees holds watch
the girls’ class grows up in nine years
of sharp-edged photos, each time exposed
after play, exhausted—
in the front row an unwavering eye
catches the camera, an Indian
girl, number One-
Seven-Four on the school roll call
the girl with a narrow look, small
for her age, straight-faced,
never smiling, never
frowning, unreadable
as if she willed her young self long
ago to stop scenting the trap line, smoked
hide a vivid memory, pushed
aside: dense sage,
wild root, the open plain
Métis
Métis road allowance squatters
with their raw camps set up on the edge
of the exact reserve boundary, she sees them all
the time, those kids, school-less, she sees
those half-breed kids who look no different
from herself and her friends, sometimes
in spring, every single thing
they own fits in the wagon pulled
by the one sapless horse, away
for summer work, or back
from winter trapping
her mother says something nice
about the half-breed boy, the one
who comes to the house to visit
and have tea with sugar and sometimes a crust of bannock
she likes him and her mother says he is
a good boy
but then one day in the not-work or trapping season,
he disappears
him and his whole family are moved
away and other families evaporate too
in the middle of the night
shacks burnt into the dirt and raked clean
her mother helps her
understand people
can just disappear
like that
like the seasons or the wind
she says, we are all
impermanent and when the girl looks puzzled
mother says like melted candle wax or snow and then
it’s finished: what are you doing inside,
go out and play
on the empty road, fingers of sunlight
comfort her back and her shoulder flesh;
she runs to feel her own quick breath
Grasshopper
in the shadows between two school buildings, the residence and the rectory, she lies on the ground on her belly, head on crossed forearms, the threat of June heat menacing the air while tricky grass quivers at her ankles
minutes ago she had the wind knocked out of her; the smile erased off her face
she back-hand wipes her nose and a grasshopper jumps nearby, deftly she cups her hand over it
its head pinched between thumb and forefinger, she draws down the grasshopper’s L-shaped foot: flex and bend, flex and bend
the mechanical knock-knee: convincing and in her guts a stirring faith that all things are made perfect by god
somewhere on the road a car horn sounds, a sign, surely, of something
she hops to her knees then her feet, tosses the grasshopper
onto the flattened grass
squatting she prompts its rump with her finger,
it twitches, draws in a delicate leg
jump, she demands and when it does not
she