Catching a Snare Drum at the Fraser’s Mouth

1   |   2   |   3   |   4   |   5   |   6   |   Home

GETTING IT ON UPRIVER

The hands burnish the mouth of the moon,
and the moon answers with leather,
This is the drum.
the hide of a dog
that barred passage to a logging truck in
      Redstone,
in Chilcotin Territory.
This is the drum, drumming
of six warriors hung in New Westminster in
     place of six chiefs,
and then the devotion of memory
This is the drum.
for a century,
granted through the hands of the Tsilhqot’in
     people
singing songs without words, because words were
     all forgotten
in the Great Leap Forward.
This was their drumming.
For a century.
This was their drumming.
The salmon that rose up the Fraser
and up the Chilcotin,
frozen to the inside of the sun.
This was their drumming.
Such tiny salmon shaking off a winter’s ice.
This was their drumming.
I remember
the soft touch of the hands to the body,
This was their drumming.
like grass,
because the earth that is lost has not been
    forgotten,
This was their drumming.
nor the salmon,
This was their drumming.
swimming down the long river to the moon,
where I follow,
drumming.

Next page

1   |   2   |   3   |   4   |   5   |   6   |   Home