Our Prince

If only your fine mind could have leapt

in another time

along this colony’s narrow path

to nationhood

It’s not just that the path is narrow

but it’s also borrowed from

another people

another place.

Be it trouble, tremble, or terror

you had to walk before the gallows

alone or with the priest

that betrayed you at Batoche

anointing your last rites

God curse them, Louis. They will regret this!

Regret hanging you

It will be the shadow side of Canada’s story

indelible as the iron stakes of ancestral memory

on this grid map, witnessing clearly

how the quarter sections got divvied up at meal time

who received 200 thousand-acre grazing leases

or railway “mile belts”

who accumulated in the greasy politics of real estate

while there was still no land for the Métis

They will regret taking our prince, our prophet

And it will manifest in the marking of places

previously touched by you, Louis

the one who gave us Manitoba

brokered pluralism

and language rights

They will regret taking our prince

our prophet, the one among us gifted,

our seer

because when they look across these plains

they will see the monuments built to him

the days named after him in recognition

and when their children ask

what Louis did

they will have to answer