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.