Wecome to Christine Falk - Pen in Hand

Here you will find up to date news and information about my writing including excerpts from my novel, poetry, articles and reveiws.

Saturday 29 March 2014

Stories From School




I went to The Shaw Conference Centre to attend part of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission this afternoon to bear witness to some of the stories.
I feel that everyone of us has many stories. Some stories are harder to share than others. I wanted to see this great bravery in story telling first hand.
As I was walking home from the event I was thinking about the history of the City of Edmonton and the Province of Alberta and the many great people I have met in my life who are of Aboriginal descent. Approaching the footbridge I encountered a thin man with a warm coat but no gloves emerging from behind the bridge with some pop cans in hand as he was heading to put them into his cart. He happened to have dark skin and long black hair much like the crowds of men and women at the gathering that I had just left. I was a bit saddened that this man was out collecting other peoples trash when he might greatly have cared to hear from the truth sharing of the tribes so near by.
Stepping onto the bridge I offered up a small prayer then for that one man. A prayer heard mostly by the bridge and the river. I asked that he know his true blessings and that he know that his story is as important as any. I closed my prayer in gratitude as this man in his efforts was taking garbage from the river valley and from the earth.
All in all I am thankful to have heard those stories myself; to be one witness to this process of healing.

Here in verse is an untold story.
It is a fiction born from dreams, yet may be a reflection of some untold facts. The fact is, spiritually, many children taken to residential schools were trapped in shame and never left those places.

On Leaving The Residential School
Those were old memories;
Running over the crusted snow in my hard shoes,
Wishing for my moccasins.
Running past that place where it hurt to run,
Past the place of shame and fear.
Pushing myself forward
Even after I heard my sister fall behind
And not even looking back for her.
Not looking to see
If it was the soft smiling man
Or the one with the snarl and the sour breath
Who grabbed her
And fired his bullets to my back.
Not looking back at any of the spiritual massacre.
Me running past that place
Where I last heard her faint breath.
Running ahead of the fading boom

And the hot hissing that chased me, burning.
Pushing forward past the place where my legs felt like my own.
Those were old memories.
Running from that cleared field to the tall thin trees,

Running beyond that false safety.
Running for deep forest cover,
Running until I reached the river.
Ice waters reviving me.
Ice waters numbing me when I was already full numb
Then that hushed lullaby that only the spruce trees sing.
That hushed lullaby.
Where wolf pups huddle secure from the cold
And I enter that hidden winter den where I find my last warmth.
Where I can remember again that I am a child
Curled up to sleep with dog pups.
Where warm tongues lick my face,
Where blood seeps from my mouth,
And no-one is there to hear my last faint breath.

peace
CF


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