Not a single blade

“You are looking for Gabriel? Ah! You are wasting your time. There is not a single blade of grass on the prairie that he does not know!”

— Father Alexis Andre, Oblate of Mary Immaculate, who accompanied Riel to the scaffold in 1885 [9]

Not a single blade

of grass on the prairie

you do not know

not a single blade

will betray and

reveal your whereabouts

After the arrival of Middleton, the North West Field Force, and the Gatling gun

after the death of your uncle, Aicawpow, in battle

after the troops set fire to your house and stable

after they confiscate your prized herd of horses and your billiard table

after Madeleine and Louis hide in the trees

after you are shot and wounded in the head

you will not surrender

instead you gather eighty rifle and forty revolver cartridges and firearms

from the Métis who surrendered or died

from the Canadian forces lying dead in the field

you will not be taken alive

and not a single blade

of grass will renounce you

your life depending on the coulees, leaves, limbs, and blades of buffalo grass

So for four days at dawn, you follow Les Anglais’ patrols searching Batoche

as morning light glints off their gun barrels

and their horses’ breath signaling the direction of their advance

you trail them, riding in their tracks to avoid being tracked

hiding in the bluffs

concealed in the coulees

crouched in the willows

the May nights cold along the river

Invisible but hunted

you slipped through their sight

to become the dogwood lining the South Saskatchewan

the ascending light at dawn and descending light at night

the poplars and cottonwoods flourishing along the river

the force of fierce winds pushing the soldiers back

the dust blown in their faces

When they moved, you moved

they stopped, you stopped

and each night you’d return to Batoche for refuge

until the next morning, you’d wait

watch them saddle-up

and set out again in their tracks

To stalk who stalks you

And not a single blade

not a single blade

betrayed you