jan 28 2020 #poetry #healing #metoo #micropoetry #vss

~

I shatter assumptions
in one single blow
of my bubble gum

I breathe lightning bolts
and cry tears of the sun

my hopes are hidden
in amongst memory’s
forgotten songs

rage tattoos my skin
in constellations
of star patterns
that ignite
the night sky
into a thousand
worn sins

 

Haida honour their dead #poetry #shortstory MT = might trigger

 

watched a documentary on the Haida honouring their dead

 

saw how totem poles used to hold their bodies in bentwood boxes set in the head

 

then some white man came along

 

dishonoured their bones and stole them away

 

like most things the white man did

 

the Haida had no say

 

kicking around in dusty old museum drawers a hundred years later

 

when they should’ve been honoured so their spirits could go home to Creator

 

how they raised $100,000 to fly to Chicago to repatriate their ancestors’ bones

 

can you hear my moans

 

I cried to watch how they treated their dead

 

their dead

 

as sacred

 

where I come from

 

people were disrespected in life and in death

 

abused as they took their very last breath

 

the enormous guilt I carry

 

it weighs me down

 

why am I still here

 

while they’re in the ground

 

when can I stop trying to pretend

 

honesty and authenticity

 

a dying trend

 

if I could share my truth as part of every day

 

would the survivor guilt I carry

 

ever go away

 

sometimes I long

 

I long to go home

 

sometimes I long

 

I long to go home

 

©2012 Clear Wind Blows Over the Moon

*toned down version with words removed.

Series of #Haiku on #TRC #HonourTheApology #IndianResidentialSchools #micropoetry #vss

.

exposing old truths

words long hidden; on paper

colonial crimes – public

~

truths written in blood

of those that never came home

may their souls find peace

~

many documents

honouring survivors’ truths

but millions held back

~

hear their voices; truths

indelibly imprinted

on hearts who read them

~

on hearts that hear them

hearts that feel their painful truths

honour survivors

~

may there be healing

honour these truths being shared now

know there are more truths

~

survivor prayers

when creator knows it’s time

more truths will be shared

~

thank you for your truths

peace/love to those that survived

and those that did not

~

may the cycle end

may minds be decolonized

may there be peace; love

~

©Clear Wind Blows Over the Moon

The above are a series of haiku I wrote on the TRC release of their report on the history of Indian Residential school abuse – I am an inter-generational survivor of these colonial institutions that created unfathomable trauma that is still being recovered from and healed from to this very day (last one closed in 1996).

Here are the reports and findings. Please note they are incomplete as the Harper government refused to release millions of documents until the very last minute (they had to be court ordered before they would release them and then dragged their feet). So the truth/fact is there wasn’t enough time or manpower for them to be fully documented and investigated. Therefore, more truths will come to light in time.

Feel free to share this link and/or this post far and wide, you can download them and learn the true history of Canada; the truth to date:

http://nctr.ca/reports.php

#haiku  #trc  #HonourTheApology  #IndianResidentialSchools #micropoetry  #vss

Recordings from the #BasementRevue fundraiser for #MMIWG last night in Toronto

Links to listen to some of the powerful and moving sharing and honouring of the 1,182 missing and murdered Indigenous women at the basement revue fundraiser in Toronto last night:

Joseph Boyden image by by Rudayna Bahubeshi

Gordon Downie image by Meghan Warby

And my own poem on this very important topic (please turn up the volume):