Red River framed houses & dust

We eat dust for days at Batoche                  and think of the men, women, and children who lived and loved this country in spite of itself                 where the wind gives in to no one’s prayers                  not even Manitou’s        where the wind-dust blasts skin, settles like soot in our eyes, ears, and hair        where Red River framed houses, assembled like puzzles                 are steadfast against the same devil wind                 but window- and door-less, now                 yet witness to the women and children hidden along the river’s banks                 the young and old men hunkered in the deep trenches                  dug against the zealous Orangemen who hunted them                  houses once witness, to the sharpest sounds of the escalating Gatlin gun                 its rhythmic assault on the ears of six-year-old boy who smashed caste iron for shot                 houses once witness, to the life that thrived despite all attempts by the Lords of the day to deny it                 houses once witness, to the people who drove their squeaking carts to the river                 and floated across a broad-shouldered South Saskatchewan                 carving through the palm of Batoche                 leaning against its knuckled-slopes grown thick with bone willow and bruised poplar                 extending a hand to the waves of wheat                  in the minefields where                 the memory is deeper than the dust-bones                 of those who deserved to dance forever