the land she came from
“If men had wings and bore black feathers, few of them would be clever enough to be crows”
— Reverend Henry Ward Beecher, mid-1800s [15]
cree woman crow
cree woman caw
black shiny bird-woman
crow and caw those who
command you, “Go back to the land you came from” [16]
so shiny black bird-woman plants herself
in front of Frank Oliver’s house [17]
has her photograph snapped in 1885
her image singed into his pupils
into the inky black-and-white pages
of his Bulletin
the official but negative space
in Edmonton’s story
not the other story
of Métis river lots
severed into city blocks
a quarter for a Métis river lot
crow knows what was what
when it all went wrong [18]
cree woman crow
cree woman caw
call out those names
caw caw caw: Rutherford
call out those names
names that now mysteriously bear title
to land once granted your husband
his reward for thirty years HBC service
as carpenter and blacksmith
a quarter for a halfbreed lot
crow knows what was what
when it all went wrong
cree woman crow
cree woman caw
crow and caw names
of those known as “better men” [19]
when Indians couldn’t own land
call out their names
caw caw caw: Oliver
stand iron-fisted before
his two-storey-red-brick-house
rising civil in the background
a quarter for a Métis river lot
crow knows what was what
when it all went wrong
cree woman crow
cree woman caw
crow woman dig down
scrape away the layers
of sleeping memory
down to the stake lines of river lots
in Rossdale and beyond
far down to the Métis family names
still breathing there: Donald, Bird, Ward
push away the top soil, sand, and silt
to names: Daigneault, Charland, Gladue
uncover their stories of migration
to build and supply Beaver Hills House
before it all went wrong
uncover the names of profiteers
Lord Strathcona, for one
snapping up script and reserve land
for the price of a sack of groceries
when Papaschase’s people
were starving and deprived of rations
recite his name: Papaschase, Papaschase, Papaschase
so it won’t wash away in the flood of “progress”