knitting

Un..deux..trois.. She counted so as not to forget. Suddenly aware of my presence, she loosened her hands on the knitting. Viens icit, toé, y faut qu’j’t’apprennes à tricoter si tu veux te marier un bon jour.

Oui mémère, I replied to the woman I loved. Somewhere inside I believed in her vision of my life. And who would marry a girl who didn’t know how to knit her husband a good warm scarf and tuque against these prairie winters. Sewing, knitting, cooking, cleaning, and knowing how to please your man – wasn’t that what it was all about?

Sitting by mémère, I purled away, counting as she did, un.. deux.. trois.. quatre. But though I tried, I could not succeed in envisioning this future she had planned for me, made up of home-made jams and pies, of wash hung to dry in the summer sun, with little ones at my feet. 

Looking back I realize that I was helping grandma knit together the seams of her life, the only one she knew, the one she had to teach me.

.

Heat

The men are still in the fields despite the late hour. Catherine is concerned. She doesn’t like it when they work past sundown. She gets images of gruesome accidents, things imagined, things she has seen happen to other women’s husbands. If it hadn’t been for the wet spring, she thinks.

The men must attempt to make up for what nature made impossible earlier in the season, and their days are long ones. The heat today is unbearable; the thermostat on the back landing marks 93F. Three times a day, she jumps in the old pick-up to deliver them food and fresh water.

She steals a kiss when she can, always fearful that it could be the last. Catherine looks forward to the coming winter, and the snow buried fields, and her husband safe at home.
.

.

-- Quand j'étais enfant, me raconta Berthe, ma mère m'envoyait porter ici,

pour les garder frais, à la source dans ce bois, le beurre,

le lait et la crème. Maintenant, on a le réfrigérateur.

C'est mille fois plus commode,

mais on a perdu

le plaisir de la source.

.

p.93, Cet été qui chantait

GABRIELLE ROY

.

If you're not from the prairie, You've not heard the grass, You've never heard grass...

       In strong summer winds, the grains and grass bend

       And say to a dance that seems never to end.

       It whispers its secrets -- they tell of this land

       And the rhythm of life played by nature's own hand.

.

image: HENRY RIPPLINGER

story: DAVID BOUCHARD

from, If you're not from the prairie . . .

Wind

I lay naked by the river bank, the summer breeze flitting and dancing on my skin until every hair stands at attention. Though I am alone, my body behaves bashfully, my spirit feels exposed.

In the wind, I could hear dragonflies sailing by, catching mosquitoes or mating perhaps. Otherwise, all is quiet except for the sound of my breath; in and out and in again, its voice catches me off guard. It has a life of its own, mine. I am here; I am alive. And the proof is in my breath.

I lay still, solitary, on the bank of the muddy river, when the news of my life is delivered to me on the tail of a wind waltzing by.
.

prairie oiseau

.
Mémère would have called it ominous,
the dead sapsucker I found
on your doorstep that day.
.....Yet how beautiful it was,
.....cloaked in orange and
.....black and white,
.....its tiny bird feet
.....turned toward
.....the sun-filled sky.
.
from May Day Poetry Project
.

prairie walk

.
over ancient land
that whispers
a thousand stories
I walk
..........and with
every step I hear
the song of
mémère's first
footfalls on the
rich prairie soil.

I keep my pace
in time with hers
and through time
and time again
we walk this land
together tied
in yesterday and
..........tomorrow.

to the drum of a
distant history
hand in hand
..........we walk
you and I.
.
from May Day Poetry Project
.

summertime

.
When the wheat turns golden, my cousin and I bring the men their supper. The first harvest must be gathered as quickly as possible. No one can predict the next rainfall, or worse, another tornado. The roar of the machines unsuccessful in diminishing the beauty of this prairie landscape, I must soon close my eyes against the setting sun the colour of fire. The fields dance in its light and I am hard-pressed to find a line of any sort, that division between land and sky. I breathe in the familiar smell of grain dust, waiting for the combine to complete its row.

We will jump on to deliver the food already melting in the paper bag I hold and chat up a few words with my uncle. It’s very hard to hear anything though. Once standing on the side bar, I realize that he is pointing to something at the rear of his machine. The grain chamber isn’t working as it should. So I make my way, carefully, to unclog it. It scares me, the idea of losing a limb over this golden grass. Still, there is contentment in feeling I'm a part of the land’s life-cycle. My heart shares warmth with the sun that blurs my vision as I quickly free the machine of its obstruction.

My uncle gives me a quick nod of approval, and we soon reach the field’s border where the old rusted truck awaits us. Summertime on the Manitoba prairies will quickly lie behind me, giving way to the big white and a chill I can hardly imagine right now. But the brief period between snowfalls in my world will live on, and on frigid January days, I will close my eyes and return to the fields where the sun waltzes with wheat and wafts the aroma of summer earth my way.
.

jours de plaines - journée pleine

.

. . . . .Il fallait que je me tourne vers une autre vie, un autre pays, l’ouest.

Grand-mère était une jeune femme quand elle décida de voyager vers l'ouest pour se marier. Mais l'étonnement de son premier coucher de soleil sur la prairie Manitobaine demeura avec elle jusqu'à son dernier soupir, quatre-vingt-une années plus tard. Elle arriva au Manitoba le 1er septembre, et dès . . .

. . . . .Le 2 septembre 1920 – une belle journée. Avec du soleil comme j’en ai jamais vu! Un climat splendide, une bonne aire qu’on respire à plein poumon, comme j’en ai jamais connu. Le climat sera pour moi un bienfait, comme me l’avait dit M. le curé Roy de Ste-Rosalie. Il était en faveur de mon mariage avec Lucien, qu’il connaissait même pas.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..... . .. . . . . . . .Des journaux de Bernadette Gosselin

Je pensais à la jolie petite Québécoise qui était ma chère grand-mère en me promenant ce soir aux environs de vingt-deux heures. Entourée de montagnes, la jeune fille ne s’était pas rendue compte qu'un soleil pouvait se coucher si tard, et je sourie en marchant à la clarté ce soir.

.

. . . . .Nous nous sommes promenées ensemble ce soir, mémère. Mes pieds bien conscients de la terre sous eux, mes pensées remplies de jours de prairies, cette terre me manque déjà, même avant que je puisse me distancer d’elle . . .

.

Prairie Girl

.

I will 4-W through poplars and fir
in search of my own private pool
The muskrats have theirs
in the river nearby where
bullfrogs and spittlebugs
spawn silent wars.
The monarchs search out newly
built goldenrods For Lease

in the rural ditches where
a young girl once played
with snakes and wild daisies
seeking & hiding & seeking, again.

(from maydaypoems/2008).

found

.
They arrived every summer, men seeking work and a place to lay their heads at night. The war had stripped them of what little security they had assumed. Memère and pepère struggled also, barely keeping ahead of the banks and the church donations, while caring for their seven children. But land had to be cared for, even (especially) during the Great Depression. Grandpa had no choice but to hire help, lest the fields be eaten by locusts or be buried beneath the October frost. The out-of-towners would be paid a few bits a day and found. For this, the men worked the fields six days a week, twelve hours a day. Some days, the prairie sun proved too much for any of them; they took respite in the Rat River that snaked along the East field.

Grandpa died before I came around; the stories I have I received from my beloved memère, who managed always with a good deal of grace and humility to tell me what it was like preparing food for all those hungry men, and caring for her children and their home. Her stories always ended with how much she missed her husband during those summers. Perhaps it was her greatest hardship.
.

Histoires de la rivière aux rats//Stories From the Rat River

JACK JONES, part iii:

When l’abbé R-- got wind of Jack’s fall, he wasted no time getting to work on his Sunday sermon. He penned lengthy words about Christian duty, of the obligation a congregation has of letting no sheep go astray. And though l’abbé had never spoken to the man outside of the familiar confines of his church, he made it clear that any man Mr. Jones should approach for drink was to turn him away. Mon oncle sat in the third pew on the right, listening and quiet in thought. He didn’t shake the priest’s hand on his way out the front steps that day. Ma tante followed, not feeling particularly sociable herself on that particular Sunday morning.

When Jack Jones found his way to oncle Robert’s farm that following Thursday, asking if mon oncle might have some whiskey to spare, the abbé’s sermon rang loudly and unpleasantly in his ears. Angered by such simplistic words and unable to get himself to close the door on the friend who now stood on his porch, his trip to town that morning quite suddenly and vividly came back to him. Mon oncle recalled a delivery truck backing up to the rectory door, and indeed, he had seen the boxes of bottled wine. They would not be blessed yet...

And so it was that Jack took his first walk to the rectory that night. Although no one can confirm what happened next, the parishioners never again heard mention of Jack in the priest's sermons.

That Christmas, Mr. Jones sat with the children while oncle Robert and tante Anne-Marie attended midnight mass in Saint-Malo, Manitoba.

Histoires de la rivière aux rats//Stories From the Rat River

my spirit dances in wheat fields;

it can be heard in the sound of the wind and
comes to life in the fury of the tempest;

it is alive in god's gift of nature.

my spirit is found in my written words
and behind them
naked to those who can see

Histoires de la rivière aux rats//Stories From the Rat River

JACK JONES: part ii

Jack had arrived in the small town a penniless man, his wages up North spent more quickly than his need for bourbon required. Having stumbled upon an old shack by the river, he made his way to the farm house above the banks of the Rat to ask the landowner’s permission if he could stay there a while. The owner was my Uncle Robert, Roger’s dad. Mon oncle is a kind-hearted, generous man and so it isn’t difficult for me to imagine him offering the coloured stranger a piece of land on his riverbank. He agreed to accept the man’s help with menial labour in exchange for the land. Mr. Jones became a gardener that day.

After some time in the community he chose to call home, Jack was accepted into the church and baptized by water with the parishioners looking on. Jack was now a full-fledged Roman Catholic. I wonder if he hoped that the blessed water might cure him of his drink. Well, despite his attempts at embracing sobriety, it wasn’t long before Jack fell off his blessed wagon and began one of his three week binges.

The bottles emptied, he managed somehow to find his way home, and when he did, he quickly fell onto the straw mattress and into a very deep sleep. He didn’t have the presence of mind to light a fire or to close the door to his shack. It was a bitter-cold winter night, the kind only a person raised on the prairies would know with any amount of intimacy. None of Jack’s toes could be saved, though many say he was lucky to get away with his life.

Histoires de la rivière aux rats//Stories From the Rat River

JACK JONES, part i:

His parents made their way to Dresden through the Underground Railroad. The escapees travelled only by night using the North Star of the Big Dipper as their guide to the land that the old spirituals called heaven. Destination, freedom. Jack Jones’s journey ended in Saint-Malo, Manitoba, by way of Alaska after years of labour on the northern pipeline. Nothing more is known of Jack’s past or how he came to find himself among people who did not speak his language and who had never before seen a black man, unless you counted Al Jolson. But then, making it to the big city movie houses sixty miles north was a rare excursion and a white man pretending to be black didn't quite compare.

While walking about the back roads of the small town one day, I took a last minute detour through the old cemetery behind the steepled church. And there it was - a life-sized statue of a man leaning against his hoe, his work day done, the gardener laying in rest just below. JACK JONES, R.I.P., the plaque announced. Though a bit askew, it seems the sculptor had tried his best to capture the facial traits of the African man. Jack had apparently remained here even after his death and was lying next to white French-Canadian Catholics, with the largest tombstone in sight. Even the Métis didn`t have such privileges unless they renounced all but their whiter half and remained quiet about certain things that needn't be talked about.

**********
Roger and I sat above the Kenosee Lake Mini-Mart and Motel catching the remains of another hot and sun-filled day during our travels through remote Saskatchewan. Jose Cuervo seemed good company as I awaited a call from Dalmar. Dalmar had promised me a late day gallop through his mountain Reservation but the sun eventually faded and the tequila was dissapearing one shot at a time. Thus began a conversation that lasted into the night. Roger would tell me how he had come to know Mister Jones as a young boy...

Histoires de la rivière aux rats

La rue D'eschambault, revisitée:

J'ai entendu le croassement du ouaouaron il n'y a pas une heure quand je me suis trouvée à l'étang au bout du champ appartenant à mon cousin. Il y a habite là des castors - quoique jamais je les vois - et des canards et des oiseaux de toutes espèces. Ils font leurs maisons entre les quenouilles et les roseaux du marais.

Mais moi, c'est le ouaouaron que j'écoutais, car il me fut penser à M. Touang, l'ami ouaouaron de Gabrielle Roy durant ses années à Charlevoix. Tu vois, tout près de l'étang, il y a une parcelle de terre dont mon cousin me donne permission d'édifier ma cabane d'écrivaine. J'ai déjà choisi un nom: La Charpente. Et on m'a trouvé une vieille cuisine d'été dont je n'ai qu'à déménager sur ma nouvelle terre.

Çà me tracasse tout ça...un moment joyeuse de la nouvelle, le prochain je me sens pleine de doutes...je ne me trouve pas prête à me déclarer <<écrivaine>>, à essayer de devenir une autre Gabrielle Roy comme L- me là suggeré l'autre soir. Ensuite, me trouvant seule au champ (c'est bien vrai que j'aime ma solitude), d'où viendra mon inspiration?

Je fais quoi de cette belle terre sur la prairie près de l'étang où vit paisiblement le ouaouaron? Y existe-t-il quelqu'un qui voudrait écouter mes mots, qui me laisserait leur raconter de mes histoires?....

histoires de la rivière aux rats

un petit roi:

~ tu as le chapeau. aujourd’hui tu es roi – le roi du royaume de la rivière au rat, et moi, je suis ton sujet…je lui dis çà comme je baisse ma tête et hausse mes bras en respect du petit roi.
il sourit. il veut rire de moi. il ne me trouve pas raisonable. le voyant là avec son chapeau trop grand me ramène à l’histoire du petit prince, et moi, je veux jouer. mais comme l’après-midi devient soirée et miguel et moi se promène main en main sur le gravier qui nous emporte vers le lac, je lui demande s’il aime être roi pour un jour. il me dit que non.
~ tu ne veux plus être roi?
~ non.
~ tu veux être quoi?
~ rien.
~ pourquoi?
il me répond sans hésitation, je suis trop petit pour être quelque chose de grand.

moi, j’hésite. je veux lui dire qu’il n’est pas trop petit, qu’il est plus important que les rois grands. mais je comprends prochainement que miguel n’a aucun problème étant petit, que ce n’est pas une mauvaise chose du tout, que c’est moi qui voudrais bien être petit comme lui et comprendre la vie sans effort.

nous sommes maintenant près du lac, et je lui montre le gros drapeau canadien qui se balance là-haut dans le vent. je crois qu’il aimera ça, comme la seule chose qu’il dessine, ce sont les drapeaux.
~ c’est quoi ça? il me demande.
~ mais-c’est un drapeau, comme ceux que tu dessine. tu aimes les drapeaux, non?
~ oui… mais lui, il veux me montrer le signe de traffique au loin…
~ regarde! stop! ça dit STOP!
~oui…
j’essaie encore, pourquoi tu dessine les drapeaux?
~ je l’sais pas.

cette fois, je me sens perdue. je croyais le connaître un peu. mais j’accepte sa réponse…ce n’est pas toujours nécéssaire de comprendre afin d’apprécier.

plus tard, à la rivière, je lui demande de me dessiner un drapeau. il me dessine un drapeau, pendu sur un poteau…
~ c’est pour toi, il me dit souriant, et m’explique que je devra planter mon poteau dans la terre.
j’apprécie son don, mais je ne le trouve pas complet. je le redonne en lui demandant s’il peu, s’il-vous-plaît, dessiner une fleur sur mon drapeau.
il me dessine une fleur qui ressemble à un homme bâton, mais je suis contente. je place mon drapeau entre les dernières pages du petit prince, et comme le petit prince, je me sens soudainement apprivoisée…

summer

Green. The colour of summer. The grass beneath my feet, between my toes, cool and spongy and winter boots but a distant memory despite the long wait for the green season. I close my eyes and breath in the sun which passes through me right down to my toes. The result: my lower digits wiggle with glee, sending a smile up to my lips. Elation.

There’s a place I call my own (though I’ve been fortunate that the elusive owners have never dropped in on a whim) where I remove my articles of clothing one by one and lay naked on the prairie grass by the brook. I tell myself it’s only fair that my toes not selfishly delight in so much pleasure. The corporeal area not forming a figure in the vegetation receives the unparalleled pleasure of the summer breeze, every peak and valley experiencing invisible ecstasy.

Buried in the big white, I dream of green...