For the children of the Residential Schools, both those who died and those who endured
Listen to the thud of knuckle bones
little children counting stones
beckoning play
snapping their invisibility away
stowaway
no flowers
nor marker
hidden where
there’ll be no seeking
Decades of no slumber
decades of haunting sing song
the scent of ceremony
inebriating ghost nostrils
but the cross forbids
the dance of bones
Too far in the ground to be seen
exhaling clouds of vapor in the day
and at night
will-o’-the- wisp
jumping over trenches
racing fireflies
We were the gust of wind
that made the kite soar
The light touch
that made your skin shudder
Longing to hold up a body
As ours no longer stood or grew
A song that was stunted
A drum that was skinned.
Now hitching a ride
on long lost cousins
handed down by the ages
protectors of land and stream
a flash of silver
beckoning the salmon upriver
swimming for life
to complete its circle
in all beings on the ground
above and, like us, under.
Pina Piccolo, 3 July 2021
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