I wrote this poem while on a soul trip to connect with ancestors and pieces of our story in St Albert, Alberta.
I had spent the day wandering around the residential school grounds there. Feeling the grief and sadness whispering through the aspen trees. I cried many tears.
I felt the feet of the little ones on the blades of grass, and running through the bushes on the trail. I wondered if anyone knew their stories, remembered their laugh and joy or even their name. I know that it is not only these spirit imprints that are left behind there, but more to discover.
I wandered the grounds, the old church, the building that replaced the residential school and the marker to note where the previous one had stood. I read the lies on the boards throughout the “park” and “historical” walkway. Well, perhaps they are someone’s version of the truth… but this is not ours. They glorified the grey nuns, the timeline of schools and how many children came through them and the “pedestaled” priest at the lead of it all. His statue stands on the grounds, new and centrally located… to continue a command over it all.
But they didn’t mention us. They spoke of the traditional name for the red willows of the land that birthed us… and they neglected to share the part of this story that is our own. Erased. The lives of the little ones lost, stolen… their laughter and joy stomped out… gone. The beauty in our culture, language, connections and spirit- nowhere to be found.
I grieved that not only these children and youth experienced such sorrow and pain in this place… but no one heard their stories. The land has not been dug and the bones lay restless under newly paved parking lots and old age care homes.
I left a spirit plate by the aspens and prayed for these souls to know that I witness them. That I hear them. That I know their story. And that night I woke to visions of all the young men and women who had waited decades for a meal together. And they were grateful.
As I left that space I walked grounding my feet into the grass and praying up to the skies telling my grandma that her little self can walk with my little self now and together are safe to explore the world. I will guide them. I will hold and treasure them. I looked back at the hill from the school I had just walked down and I saw an indigenous man with a long braid… grounding his feet into the grass and looking up into the skies as I had done. And I was hopeful, that I am not the only one tending to the spirits who need us.
So this poem came in the one place where I actually saw our presence and our story in this town. The healing garden by the river. The trees were decorated with hanging red dresses and the images of missing kin, that lightly flowed in the wind. I sat in the circle and read about the continued pain and racism in this town for Indigenous people. People wrote their stories of hopelessness into a little booklet where sacred medicines were also provided to help them to leave that pain there on the page and no longer carry it.
And I wanted to share parts of the prayers I had made that day while walking the residential school grounds and leave some hope.
I feel you. I see you. I hear you. And we can walk together towards a beautiful, connected, healed Indigenous future.
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