Runaway Dreams (10 page)

The trouble with these Indians he says, is they want everything

for nothing. There follows a clamour of grunts and the thump

of beer glasses hitting the table and you can tell by the look of

him that he's just hitting his stride. The other thing, he says,

is that they blame us poor schmucks for what went down in

our great-great-grandfather's time, like we gotta shell out now

for what happened then. This land claim business and this

treaty rights business and the whole reconciliation thing? It's

all about money anyhow and me I don't figure there's a way

for anybody to buy their way back into the past. But you get

those brown fuckers started and all they want to talk about is

their grandfather and how if things were now like they were

then we'd all be better off. I call BS on that. Before we came

they had nothin'. They weren't even using the land they lay

claim to now. There's a round of “amen to that,” “give 'er

straight,” and “friggin' A.” And someone shouts across the

room for another round and the guy settles into his chair and

meets everybody's eye before he starts in again. We give 'em

guns and money, steel and liquor and an invitation to the

future and all they could ante up was a toboggan, snowshoes

and an ear or two of corn. We give them religion, education,

government, reservations and no frickin' taxes and all they

can do is whine about someone stealing their land when they

weren't lookin'. They get every friggin' thing for free, free

house, free health care, free university, free land, free jobs at

the damn band office and still no frickin' taxes and they still

whine about what they lost. But they can drink our liquor,

screw our women, claim our rightful property, sue our

government for cash they don't try to earn in any kind of

respectful way and then they go and tell the world how bad

they're done by here. He stands up and holds a hand over

his heart and belts out a line or two in a big bass voice.

“O Canada,” he sings. “Your home's on native land.” Everyone

laughs like hell, even the waitress who drops him a free
one.

When he sits back down there's big, hearty, manly slaps on

the back and shoulders and he basks in it, swallows half his

beer and grins like a silly kid who farted at the table. You can

always tell an Indian, he says, pauses and looks everybody in

the eye, holds the moment, savours it, then says, can't tell 'em

much . . . and laughter rocks the place again. He flicks his

watch up to his face, and drains off his beer and stands to

hitch his pants and straighten his suit. “Been fun but I gotta

work,” he says and turns to leave. “Where you workin' anyway?”

someone asks. He turns at the door and levels a grin at

everyone. “Indian Affairs,” he says and his belly laugh follows

him out into the world.

I

When you come to stand upon the land there's a sense in you

that you've seen it all before. Not in any empirical way. Not

in any western sense of recognition but in the way it comes

to feel upon your skin, the way it floods you with recollection.

Standing here beside this tiny creek in the mountains you

suddenly remember how it felt to catch minnows in a jar.

The goggle-eyed sense of wonder at those silvered, wriggling

beams of light darting between stones and the feel of the

water on your arms, cool and slick as the surface of dreams.

You lived your life for the sudden flare of sunlight when

you broke from the bush back then and the land beckoned

through your bedroom window so that sometimes when the

house was dark and quiet you stood there just to hear the call

of it spoken in a language that you didn't know but that filled

you nonetheless with something you've grown to recognize

as hope. So that you came to approach the land like an old

familiar hymn, quietly, respectfully, each step a measure, each

breath a softly exhaled note. That creek ran out of farmland

and wound its way to the reservoir behind an old mill, the

voice of it a chuckle, its edges dappled by the shadows of old

elms and its light like the dancing bluish-green eyes of the

girl on the bus you could never find a way to say a word to. So

you lay across a long flat stone to dip a mason jar elbows deep

and hung there, suspended in your boyhood, while minnows

nibbled at your fingertips and the breeze brought moss and

ferns and rot and scent of cows and flowers to you and you let

that arm dangle until the feeling went away then raised it with

minnows frantic in the sudden absence of their world. Oh,

you couldn't keep them. Couldn't carry them home like a

carnival prize, give them names or place them in a bowl upon

your desk. No, something in you understood even as a boy of

twelve that some things ache to be free and the charm of

them resides in their ability to be that freedom. So you let

them go. Let them swim away. But when you rose you carried

something of that creek, that cold against your arms, the

sun-warmed stone against your belly, the breeze, the light and

the idea of minnows, away with you forever. So that standing

here at fifty-five on the edge of another laughing creek you're

returned to that place, and you're surprised to find it here

like the feeling of opening your eyes after sleep and finding

home all around you once again. It's a journey, this life.

A crossing of creeks on stepping stones where so much comes

to depend on maintaining balance on every careful placing

of the foot.

II

weweni bizindan

omaa ashi awe asemaa

listen careful

put the tobacco here

lay it soft upon the Earth and pray

say great thanks to your Mother

for everything she gives to you

and walk this way

in the path of the sun across the sky

for this is the trek

we all must make

so that we can gather medicine

to make this life a ceremony

anami'aawin
 — a prayer

to all that is

and everything that will be

upon our journey's end

a great walking

this path whose final gift

is vision

III

them they call it the medicine wheel but us

we never had no need for wheels

so it's always been a sacred circle

then and now for us

see, wheels my boy, had to be invented

and this was always just a gift to people

something that always was

and always gonna be

on accounta Spirit made it

them teachin's never come from us

but we come to own them

when we make the journey

pass 'em on then

make sure to honour

the gift they are that way

that's the medicine way, my boy

gwekwaadziwin
 — respect

just knowin' that everything and everyone

has their place here

and us sometimes we need to help

each other find our way

if that's a wheel

me I hope it keeps on turnin'

IV

you lie on this slant of hillside

staring up at a sky dimpled

with the light of countless

possible worlds

and it feels like you're impaled

on it somehow

the motion of the planet

the tilt and whirl and spin of it

easing you upwards

back into star dust

Star People came once a long time ago

to sit at the fires of the Anishinabeg

and bring stories and teacher talk

that filled their world with dreams

the Old Ones say they were a gentle sort

and they brought the idea of ceremony

like a great and ancient light

and medicine was born

we all of us are energy they said

we all of us are dream and story

and in the end we return to it

to energy, to spirit, to the great

ongoing tale of our becoming

because there is no end, no finality

only a sacred circle spinning

within us

the spirit place we're meant to travel to

to find the truth of us, the song

we carry forward into dream

sung into story, sung into light

sung into spirit that comes to join

the energy of all things, the completeness

of that sacred circle spinning everywhere at once

all things coming true

together

the circle is wholeness

whose first principle is equality

that creates harmony

that creates the balance

that comes to mean

the humility that transcends all things

that itself evolves into the love

that's born within and reflected out

to keep the circle spinning

they left us then

returning to the place of all beginnings

as the old ones say

and we began the journey to ourselves

the circle of us turning

into years into time into the history

of our time here

the story of us

all we ever have

all we carry with us

and all we leave behind

so you lie on a slant of hillside

against a bowl of stars

the earth pressed against your back

and the feel of that immense fullness

everywhere around you breathing

it into you until you rise finally

to make your way back

to whatever location held you in place

long enough for you to feel

lonely for the sky

V

You come to fifty-five like you came to thirteen. Expectant as a

pup at the door waiting for someone to kick it open and send

you galumphing out into the world again all legs and lungs

and joy. That's the trick of it, really. That's what they mean

when people say medicine wheel. Wisdom turning into itself

again. The journey we make that brings us back to the only

place it can — the place of all beginnings — the innocence

we are born in and the great, wide, all-encompassing wisdom

of that. You get to be a boy again, charmed by the simple,

the ordinary, the commonplace and seeing magic in it.

You'd make that journey anytime and the wonder of it lies

in bringing others with you, sharing it, offering it to other

travellers lost without a light. So you stand looking upward

at the sky together then, the awe you feel in bringing energy

together, the sacred circle of you, joined by an everyday glory

you only need to breathe to recognize, to haul into you to

join, to hold in your chest like a wish that frees you. Great

wheel, spin, spin.