I was 23 when I met my spirit mother. I’d buried my father and my older brother, gone to university, gotten put on probation, answered an ad that seemed the answer to my prayer for something meaningful to do with that year, some path that mattered. The path led to Mexico, to a teaching…
Month: February 2018
Leash and Carriage
yesterday in sherwood park, our rough hewn hounds pound past cossetted furbabies, jacketed and lifted from the snow/ice/salt when their tender paws grow weary their humans wheel them home in strollers they chuckle wryly, we burl on, both sides too refined to strain at judgment’s leash. today on avenue of nations, i spy another…
Gala: Gliding as Prophecy
Young women glide in hanbok, with hand drums and dance. This is their country, and they sway, decorated in flowers. I remember horror and indignation from embassy staff, but i see it still, undeterred: In their endurance, in their 5000 years of absorbing invasion, immigration, subjugation and some alchemical fermentations fed by the earth i…
Gone to Starlight
She is gone from this place, another great woman. We loved her, as one loves a whirlwind. Lifted now into the sky realms, her path remains in our hearts, leads on into wilderness. There is so much more to say, but for now, farewell and love to the incomparable Elke Blodgett
On Skijump Apparel Design
the wind is against them beside them, or sulking and the technical crew move peg by peg, the gates to compensate, while they wait, in their neoprene squirrel suits, modeled on aerodynamics in skin in born; i watch in wonder wondering do they study strategy of sugar gliders, flying foxes or lemur kind, who also…
Edge
breech position, spiked fingers strike ice, toes point leg and shoulder pull thru curve women on blades, cutting to ribbons old narratives of princess and maid these are rocketeers, pledged to the swiftest line down twisting paths, but weighted each one the same, a fixed mass given equal opportunity, one by one they fly. …
Without
i am watching figure skating without commentary how am i to know what to think? how am i to know what i see? i was not prepared for this, no voiceover to tell me the names, chain together leap and spin with tales of how this person chose this music, this program, this choreography my…
Names Like Prayers
What do you need to believe? Shiva Keshavan wears names like prayers wrapped around him, as he flies down highways of ice, chasing glory. He is carrying dreams and pledges that hold him, like the many armed deity steady on the road, arrow swift unflinching, and joyous in his might. How do we wrap our young…
Flame-bearing
Olympic Flame PyeongChang Kim Yuna glides high above the gathered throngs waiting, her thoughts her own carving sprays of ice, in arcs that fall and glimmer, like a thousand prayers from mouth to sky, can you hear me? families divided by a line between world powers, carved across their homeland’s face might read anything or…
Keep on Dancing
Today, I’m watching this film: Dancing Around the Table My aim was just to show my kid her grandpa, there among the indigenous delegations; but of course, start watching, and it is remarkably clear that, despite what the champions of derivative, tragedy porn works like ‘Secret Path’ would have us believe, the truth has been…
Peering Out for Shadows
The 2018 Winter Olympics are a week from opening Pyeongchang, South Korea. In North America, it’s Groundhog Day. Here, we laugh at silly ritual by which we say, a rodent tells the weather ahead, either long weeks more of snow, cold, dark, or softly spring come early, budding. Meanwhile, in a mountain town gathered…
O Canada: Our Home, and Native Land
Not that we haven’t got Indigenous language versions, made by Indigenous language speakers. That’s remarkable, really, considering how the government made it policy to try to exterminate our languages. My Ojibwe tongue was severed in my father’s generation. That those who have kept our languages love this country in spite of it all, enough to put into those the anthem of the country that engendered such a history of abuse against our families, frankly moves me to tears.
This level of love and enduring belief in the power of making a home here for all comers should be lifted up as one of the world’s great examples of humanity.
Prairiepomes 