pahkwêsikan ~ Bread
How Grandma baked the best bread
between Red River Colony
and Beaver Mountain House.
Dad approaching Grandma and Grandpa
asking permission to marry their daughter.
Because he loved Mom, loved Grandma’s bread,
and maybe Grandma could speak a little Cree.
I only heard Grandma speak
one Cree word. She baked
the best bread west of Red River.
ê-kî-mâh-mâwaci-miyo-pahkwêsikanihkêt
pahkisimotâhk isi
mihkwâkamîwi-sîpîhk ohci.
August 1975. Mom and Dad
married nearly fifteen years
and Grandpa passes on.
Dad welcomes Grandma into his home
thirteen years before it’s necessary.
“When it’s time and you’re ready,” he says,
“you have a home in our home.”
How Grandma baked all those dozens
of loaves for Ack Hall and the Sigurdsons
as a teenaged Métis girl
on the wide Saskatchewan prairie.
The way Ack Hall and the Sigurdsons
find their way into this poem.
Like the way Grandma
took her bread-baking into Beaver
Mountain House and Mom and Dad’s house.
ê-kî-mâh-mâwaci-miyo-pahkwêsikanihkêt
pahkisimotâhk isi
mihkwâkamîwi-sîpîhk ohci.
Winter 1988.
How Grandma didn’t trust
the modern oven, electric heat
faulty, by hook or by crook.
She’d open the door and stick her arm
in, testing the temperature,
remembering the wood-warmth
of Ack’s oven. Sixteen loaves at a time,
her house, and now Mom and Dad’s house,
a big bread oven emanating
heat and yeast and toasty love.
I don’t know how much Cree she
spoke, but I do know Grandma baked
the best bread west of Red River.
namôya nikiskêyihtên ê-kî-nêhiyawêt
nôhkom, mâka ê-nisitawêyihtamân
ê-kî-mâh-mâwaci-miyo-pahkwêsikanihkêt
pahkisimotâhk isi
mihkwâkamîwi-sîpîhk ohci.
Christmas 1998. Breakfast table
arrayed with porridge, bacon,
chokecherry jam and bread the colour
of a Saskatchewan wheat field, bread fresh
and warmhearted as a prairie harvest.
Grandma thanks God for life and food
and family, says “Amen,” then says
“pahkwêsikan.” Dad, her son-in-law,
sitting kitty-corner to her, the only one
who understands pahkwêsikan,
passes nôhkom the bread.
How Grandma tells the story
of bread on the table when she
was a girl. Bread neatly sliced,
and ten kids hurly-burlying
for the crust. One brother grabs
the heel, sticks it in his armpit,
returns it to the plate. Another
brother seizes another heel, licks
it, returns it to the plate.
After that, no one wants the crust.
The way my sister knows how
to bake bannock because Grandma
taught her. The way I bake bread
in the clay oven at Fort Edmonton,
tell visitors that the Scots brought
bannock over here from over there.
âkayâsiwak, môya ôki
âkayâsîmowak, ôki
kâ-pîkiskwêcik anima kotak
pîkiskwêwin, ôki
ê-kî-pêsiwâcik pahkwêsikana
ôtê êkotê ohci.
The way I explain that my Cree
foremothers taught my Orkney
forefathers about pimîhkân.
Beaver Mountain House, a towering
pemmican processing plant.
ôtê ê-ohcîmakahk pimîhkân.
êkotê ê-ohcît pahkwêsikan.
Pemmican from over here.
Bread from over there.
November 2006.
Winter hurries in hard this year.
How I notice pahkwêsikan near
pahkwênêw in the dictionary,
pahkwêsikan meaning bread,
pahkwênêw meaning to break
a piece off by hand, as in bread.
How I wonder, which came first
the bread or the breaking.
I have pounded meat,
poured warm water over yeast,
learned that to be a family,
it’s okay to be from over here
and to be from over there.
ê-kî-îwahikanihkêyân,
ê-kî-sîkinamân kisâkamicêwâpôs ohpihkasikanihk,
ê-kî-kiskinohamâkosiyân ka-wîtisânîhitoyâhk
kiyâm ôtê ka-ohcîyâhk
êkwa kiyâm pêskis êkotê ka-ohcîyâhk.