Trans Canada

Pulled from our ruts by the made-to-order gale

We sprang upward into a wider prairie 

And dropped Regina below like a pile of bones.

Sky tumbled upon us in waterfalls, 

But we were smarter than a Skeena salmon 

And shot our silver body over the lip of air

To rest in a pool of space

On the top storey of our adventure. 

A solar peace

And a six-way choice. 

Clouds, now, are the solid substance, 

A floor of wool roughed by the wind

Standing in waves that halt in their fall. 

A still of troughs. 

The plane, our planet, 

Travels on roads that are not seen or laid

But sound in instruments on pilots' ears, 

While underneath, 

the sure wings

Are the everlasting arms of science. 

Man, the lofty worm, tunnels his latest clay, 

And bores his new career. 

This frontier, too, is ours. 

This everywhere whose life can only be led

At the pace of a rocket

Is common to man and man, 

And every country below is an I land. 

The sun sets on its top shelf, 

And starts seem farther from our nearer grasp. 

I have sat by nights beside a cold lake

And touched things smoother than moonlight on still water, 

But the moon on this cloud sea is not human, 

And here is no shore, no intimacy, 

Only the start of space, the road to suns. 

Poem: "Trans Canada" F.R. Scott, 1945 

Photo: James Sutton, from his book "Signs in Action" 1965

Zalinka

1.

Last night in a land of triangles, 

  I lay in a cubicle, where

A girl in pyjamas and bangles 

  Slept with her hands in my hair. 

2. 

I wondered if either or neither

  Of us were properly there, 

Being subject to queer aberrations-

Astral and thin aberrations-

  Which leave me no base to compare; 

  No adequate base to compare: 

Tho' her hands, with their wristful of bangles, 

  Where certainly fast in my hair, 

While the moon made pallid equations 

  Thro' a delicate window there. 

3. 

I was glad that she slept for I never

  Can tell what the finish will be: 

What enamoured, nocturnal endeavour

  May end in the killing of me: 

But, in the moonlit obscuro 

  Of that silken, somniferous lair, 

Like a poet consumed with a far lust

  Of things unapproachably fair

I fancied her body of stardust-

Pounded of spices and stardust- 

  Out of the opulent air. 

4. 

Then the moon, with its pale liquidations, 

  Fell across her in argentine bars, 

And I thought: This is fine- but to-morrow

  What cut of Dawn's cold scimitars 

Will sever my hold on this creature- 

  I mean of this creature on me?- 

Amorous creature of exquisite aura- 

  Marvel of dark glamorie. 

5. 

What joy of folly then followed

  Is beyond my expression in rhyme: 

And I do not expect you to grasp it

  When I speak of expansions of time: 

Of reaching and zooming serenely 

  As it were at right angles to time:

Knowing well you will think, on your level, 

  This was only a dream indiscreet- 

  Or experience quite indiscreet:

But little I care, in this instance, 

  What you do or do not think discreet: 

  O utterance futile, but sweet, 

  Like a parrot I pause and repeat, 

In delight of my own, and for nothing, 

  To myself I repeat and repeat: 

6. 

Last night in a land of triangles, 

  I lay in a cubicle where

A girl in pyjamas and bangles 

  Slept with her hands in my hair. 

Poem: "Zalinka," Tom MacInnes

Our Frog-Skin World

"The green frog skin- that's what I call a dollar bill. In our attitude toward it lies the biggest difference between Indians and whites...
     ..."Each day you can see ranch hands riding over this land. They have a bagful of grain hanging from their saddle horns, and whenever they see a prairie-dog hole they toss a handful of oats in it, like a kind little old lady feeding the pigeons in one of your city parks. Only the oats for the prairie dogs are poisoned with strychnine. What happens to the prairie dog after he has eaten this grain is not a pleasant thing to watch. the prairie dogs are poisoned, because they eat grass. A thousand of them eat up as much grass in a year as a cow. So if the rancher can kill that many prairie dogs he can run one more head of cattle, make a little more money. When he looks at a prairie dog he sees only a green frog skin getting away from him.
     "For the white man each blade of grass or spring of water has a price tag on it. And that is the trouble, because look at what happens. The bobcats and coyotes which used to feed on prairie dogs now have to go after a stray lamb or a crippled calf. The rancher calls the pest-control officer to kill these animals. This man shoots some rabbits and puts them out as bait with a piece of wood stuck in them. That stick has an explosive charge which shoots some cyanide into the mouth of the coyote who tugs at it. The officer has been trained to be careful. He puts a printed warning on each stick reading, "Danger, Explosive, Poison!" The trouble is that our dogs can't read, and some of our children can't either.
     "And the prairie becomes a thing without life- no more prairie dogs, no more badgers, foxes, coyotes. the big birds of prey used to feed on prairie dogs, too. So you hardly see an eagle these days. The bald eagle is your symbol. You see him on your money, but your money is killing him. When a people start killing off their own symbols they are in a bad way.
     "The Sioux have a name for white men. They call them wasicun- fat takers. It is a good name, because you have taken the fat of the land. But it does not seem to have agreed with you. Right now you don't look so healthy- overweight, yes, but not healthy. Americans are bred like stuffed geese- to be consumers, not human beings. The moment they stop consuming and buying, the frog-skin world has no more use for them...Fat-taking is a bad thing, even for the taker. It is especially bad for Indians who are forced to live in this frog-skin world which they did not make and for which they have no use...
     ..."Artists are the Indians of the white world. They are called dreamers who live in the clouds, improvident people who can't hold onto their money, people who don't want to face "reality." They say the same things about Indians. How the hell do these frog-skin people know what reality is? The world in which you paint a picture in your mind, a picture which shows things different from what your eyes see, that is the world from which I get my visions. I tell you this is the real world, not the Green Frog Skin World. That's only a bad dream, a streamlined, smog-filled nightmare.
     "Because we refuse to step out of reality into this frog-skin illusion, we are called dumb, lazy, improvident, immature, other-worldly . It makes me happy to be called "other-worldly," and it should make you so. It's a good thing our reality is different from theirs."

Prose: John (Fire) Lame Deer as told to Richard Erdoes, from their book "Lame Deer Seeker of Visions" 1972. 
Photo: Worthington Glacier, AK. JG