Les Animaux

“This summer I planted ten acres in potatoes and barley. The ferry gave me more work than I wanted. We lived pretty good without the hunting. In 1880 or 1881, I led the last Saskatchewan hunts, but les animaux were gone and out ancient ways went with them.” [4]

— Jordan Zinovich, Gabriel Dumont in Paris

gone, uncle they’re gone

and something in us goes too following after

les animaux, those who you “called” as if they were your brother

les animaux, those who you called mon frère and herded with their great beards

les animaux, the brothers that have left us                      they have moved to another plain,

uncle, on the last hunt instead of seeing a moving sea of brown backs, a rippling

ground

now, you see only a few stumps feeding on grasses

now, their great size is swallowed by the bigger prairie

prairie, that once seemed like it couldn’t hold all

les animaux, their sound like distant thunder will never reach your ears again

uncle, how sad that day                      when no one spoke of them

as if speaking their name

could slice an arm from one’s own body

because they were you

                      were you less of a man because of them?

les animaux made you captain of the hunt

now, you are the captain of fighting men standing ground

against the settlers rolling in by the thousands

now, they are the new herds,

but they’re not les animaux

the brothers that fed and clothed us

and gave us reason to dance

gone, and now the prairie is mute