LETTER TO SIR JOHN A. MACDONALD

Dear John: I’m still here and halfbreed,

after all these years

you’re dead, funny thing,

that railway you wanted so badly,

there was talk a year ago

of shutting it down

and part of it was shut down,

the dayliner at least,

‘from sea to shining sea,’

and you know, John,

after all that shuffling us around to suit the settlers,

we’re still here and Métis.

We’re still here

after Meech Lake and

one no-good-for-nothin-Indian

holdin-up-the-train,

stalling the ‘Cabin syllables / Nouns of settlement,

/. . . steel syntax [ and ] / The long sentence of its exploitation’1

and John, that goddamned railroad never made this a great nation,

cause the railway shut down

and this country is still quarreling over unity,

and Riel is dead

but he just keeps coming back

in all the Bill Wilsons yet to speak out of turn or favour

because you know as well as I

that we were railroaded

by some steel tracks that didn’t last

and some settlers who wouldn’t settle

and it’s funny we’re still here and callin ourselves halfbreed.

  

---

1 F. R. Scott, “Laurentian Shield.”