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DARK LEGACY

Poems inspired from researching residential schools

Poetry inspired by Finding My Talk by Dr. Agnes Grant

How Fourteen Women reclaimed their lives after residential schools.

Written by John Holman

For Writing Revolution in Place blog.

On and on it goes

Truth can be seen in so many ways

Covered in darkness, shrouded in light

For every memory we hold

Lives the pain that we live within

For every tear stained entry we write

Are healing thoughts that we cannot fight

As we try to forget the past

As we try to begin anew

Truth becomes music to which we dance

On and on it goes

Across the roads and through this endless field

Barefoot we run

Stones kicking at our feet

The sunlight erases the scars we hold

Into the quiet never to be told

Captured by rage

Numb to the fear of whom we are

Lost in a place where nobody speaks

On and on it goes!

©2013  John Holman

 

 

When it’s Over

Separated by black skies

And the cold hands that dragged me away

Still a brilliant fire burns within me

Since that very day

Locked inside a chamber that fostered anything but love

If God had the answers

He was laughing from above

I remained who I could be

When it’s over I would be free

©2013  John Holman

I Don’t See You Standing There

We don’t see you

You’re not really there

I will do what I have to do and finish my day

Not ever to clinch or cry

Because your blood stains tell me why

But I don’t see you standing there

The room is far too silent

Wiping the tears you cry with holy water

The school master laughing endless at you

But I don’t see you standing there

Another lesson learned

As your screams echoed   through the halls

We were never taught to care

I don’t see you standing there

 
 ©2013  John Holman

The church of no return

See the tears you don’t dare to shed

It is now your turn

This is the path so wayward led

In the valley where the tombs lay dead

It is now your turn

Where the children play and fled

So quiet are thoughts in your head

It is now your turn

All your thoughts are now white led

Destroy the skin that you embed

It is now your turn

I am the father that you so dearly dread

I will have you seeing blue and red

It is now your turn

Learn the poison I teach instead

Into the church yard is where you bled

This is the church of no return

To be afraid is to be mislead

Where the children now lay dead

©2013 John Holman

Beautiful absolution

Do you see me I am here?

On top of the world

Do you see me I am here?

Still on top of the world

©2013 John Holman

The Harvest

Going to the harvest to we work all night long

We work in the fields

We whistle this aching sorrow song

I have not seem my family in so long

We work in the fields

Here the children and the corn try to get along

Burning sunlight in the harvest all day long

We work in the fields

No one ever told us that this was wrong

Working till the sun sets on my skin as I plow along

We work in the fields

In the maze of wheat and corn I drag the dogs along

I hear my mama’s voice at night singing me this song

We work in the fields

She cries herself to sleep at night she been crying all along

Going to the harvest we work all night long

We work in the fields

I hear my mama’s voice at night singing me this song

On the day she died I plowed the fields singing this swan song

©2013 John Holman

 

Notes about the Poems:

The opportunity to research a part of Canada’s darkest history lays a legacy of shame. This was no surprise to me as I began to conduct research for this project. I sifted through several titles and was sent to endless websites by friends and community members. Indian residential schools are a big deal with a dark legacy that affects all Canadians. Everyone I know had something to say and much had already been written.
I was fortunate enough to come across Finding My Talk written by Dr. Agnes Grant. Testimonies of abuse are not easy reads but testimonies of residential school abuse are even more difficult to read. These stories seem to cut deeper on a personal level and were head turning when the truth of church and state join forces for genocidal agendas.

In my own life time I have seen the first hand damage from the ripple effect for generations before me who attended these schools. It was important to me understand what was behind the pain so much of my people lived through but today it is also equally important to know that we as a culture and community could move forward and  that there are those who have done just that.

Dr Grant’s work is the total package, she eloquently reviews the family history of each survivor, while truthful of abuses of all family members and just how 14 women triumph beyond the labels and stereotypes of survivors. Dr Grant show each women’s journey through residential school system to where they are today as glowing member of today’s society. For  this blog I have chosen 5 poems from the original compilation and one new poem written in French Villanelle form.

On and on it This poem was inspired by Marlene Starr’s forward to the text Finding My Talk. The poems signify suffering in silence and isolation those survivors lived through. The focus of this book was of 14 women who shared these testimonies. Marlene Starr’s forward expresses this would not be another book on abuse, this book would show triumph after the silence and isolation.

When it’s Over  was inspired also by  Marlene Starr’s forward to Finding My Talk  that showed example of commonalities that each of the  women seem to share. I was inspired by these. Starr mentioned that although all women endured the inevitably of being witness to abuse and having to attend residential school and all they entailed, it did not have to be accepted. These women, as she mentioned were able to sort out the good from the evil knowing it would not last forever.

I Don’t See You Standing There   was inspired by the recollection that survivor’s spoke of about  punishment’s which entailed  public humiliation, a way of maintaining the dignity of the victim all while remaining silent among each other.

This is where love begins one of the greatest parallels that run through Dr Grant’s work is the emptiness amongst the families, especially in early residential school experience. Intergenerational parental abuse took the form of loveless relationships that were a direct result of the institutional upbringing. Finding My Talk  also shows another side of this issue as women found  their own strength and power, in education as  a way to break the cycle and to let go of their past. The poem signifies the “love “that was never found in the residential school systems.

The church of no return written in villanelle French form, this poem demonstrates ongoing atrocities of Church ministries against the early residential schools student. The repetition of the line ‘your turn’ signifies the inevitable recurrences of Indian Residential Schools and children were often taken with no warning they were leaving or where they were going. The Roman Catholic, Anglican, Presbyterian, Methodist and United Churches took part in this system. Throughout the text Dr. Grant noted that many survivors who revisited the school were often met with burial site of students who what died in the schools.  Burial sites throughout Canada have been documented.

Beautiful absolution the greatest theme of all found in Finding My Talk is empowerment. The book is an asset when looking beyond the “histories” of abuse and allowing the stores to inspire while being truthful and done with the utmost respect regarding all incidents of the past. All of the stories include intergenerational transference within the system form residential school to industrial school form one part of the Canada to another. From parents who once attended these schools to their children who were about to take part in the system. This book show how difficult and how strong the human condition can be in the face of adversity.

The Harvest also written villanelle French form this poem signifies how survivors would also attend boarding schools and industrial schools to learn farming and trade to take back to their communities.

Much of their work was highly monitored by the Indian Agent or each reserve and very little if any compensation was given back to the individual survivor!