Take This Rope and This Poem (A Letter for Big Bear)

This is a poem with a rope around it

because I speak poorly.

These are the words I want to say

to the great-grandfather mistahi-maskwa

but first I must speak with the Elder’s helper.

Tell Big Bear I am sorry

for trying to speak for him.

nimihtâtên ê-kî-kakwê-pîkiskwêstamâwak

anohc nitapahtêyimison êkâ ê-nihtâ-nêhiyawêyân.

This poem has a rope around it

the way a fence confines freedom,

the way words are crushed

when the land is sectioned, sold, stolen.

Like that rope Big Bear said would grab

his neck if he signed the treaty.

He said he didn’t want

to be bound and bridled like a horse,

but the corpulent treaty commissioners

thought mistahi-maskwa was afraid

of the hangman’s noose. Instead of hanging

the great-grandfather, they tethered him

to a jail cell in Manitoba.

There’s a knot in the rope clutching this poem.

ayis mwêstas tahto-askiy kêyâpic

namôya ê-kaskihtâyân.

Because after all these years of study, still

I am not capable.

What does it mean that it took

me twenty years to reclaim

the word pîsâkanâpiy from

Shaganappi Trail? What

does it mean that it took me

twenty years to untangle the knot

of a traffic jam on a freeway

in Calgary and to recognize

pîsâkanâpiy for what it is?

A rawhide rope.

Why did I have to go to a museum

to learn how to make rawhide?

What does it mean that I smell

diesel fuel in the frigid mid-winter

instead of the hot mucky membrane

of a hide scraped in the fever of mid-summer?

How has it come to this?

the roar of transit busses

instead of the rumble of buffalo: paskwâwi-mostoswak

the aftertaste of caffeine

instead of the tang of Labrador tea: maskêkwâpoy

Shaganappi Trail

instead of pîsâkanâpiy mêskanaw.

The knot in this rope âniskohpicikan pîsâkanâpîhk

must surely be akin to the knot

stuck in his great-granddaughter’s throat.

Big Bear’s great-granddaughter, Yvonne, the one

who spent so many years unable to talk

because of a double-cleft palate.

What kind of malicious irony is this

when forked tongues knit together

like a steel foot-hold trap?

Tell the great-grandfather I’ve learned

that the knot in this poem

âniskohpicikan pîsâkanâpîhk

is not like a bead on a string

namôya tâpiskôc âniskôhôcikan ôma kâ-tâpisahoht,

and not at all like those chains

used to hold the old man

at Stony Mountain Penitentiary.

mwâc ahpô tâpiskôc anihi pîwâpiskwêyâpiya

kâ-kî-âpacihtâhk ka-sakahpitiht ana kisêyiniw

asinîwaciy kipahotowikamikohk.

Take this poem and tell mistahi-maskwa I’ve learned

that cêskwa! means “Wait!”

and nakî! means “Stop!”

Tell him that ê-tapahtiskwêkâpawiyân

osâm nika-âpahên âniskohpicikan nahiyikohk

ka-nisitohtamân ê-kî-nôhtê-pîkiskwâtât ostêsimâwa

anihi kâ-wâpiskisiyit ostêsimâwa

kâ-kî-masinahamiyit ostêsimâwasinahikan.

I stand humble, my head bowed

because I will loosen the knot just enough

to understand that he only wanted to talk to his brothers,

those older white brothers who wrote the treaty.

Take this rope and this poem

and tell the old man

ninôhtê-paskisên pîsâkanâpiy

êkwa ê-nôhtê-wîci-pîkiskwêmimak otayisiyinîma.

namôya kîkway ayiwâk.

I want to cut the rope.

I want to speak with his people.

Nothing more.

ay-hay I say to you,

the one who helps Big Bear

kiya kâ-wîcihat mistahi-maskwa.