English Poems From Into The Blue Poem by Sheena Blackhall

The Saamis Teepee
The Saamis Teepee in Medicine Hat
Is white for purity,
Red for the rising and setting sun,
Blue for flowing waters

It stands on the edge of an ancient
Blackfoot buffalo jump

Dan Weasel Moccasin came here
Told of a merman,
Told of a tepee
With the sign of an otter
With the waves of the river
Told of a head dress of Eagle feathers

Once, like the buffalo
The first nation covered the plains of
Southern Saskatchewan, Alberta,northern Montana.

Their Medicine Lodge was used for sacred rituals
Their Sweat Lodges healed andpurified

Here, in the long ago time
Cree and Blackfoot hunted deer and elk
Traded furs with the incomers

Bright with quill work, bead work.
Their Moccasins, vests, tobacco bags

The Plains Cree danced
The Sun Dance
The Sweat Dance
The Thirst Dance,
The Masked Dance,
The Give Away Dance,
The Prairie Chicken Dance,
The Pipestem Bundle Dance
With feasting, offeringsof food,
Tobacco and prayers.

They still pass on the feather,
Sing, listen to stories and the wind
Still feel the spirit power of the Northern Lights
For all things, they will tell you, are related



The Reluctant Homesteader
She sleeps, but all her early dreams have fled,
The prairie winds blow hard, the dustbowls blow
A Scottish writer, fortune lay ahead

The sun burns down, her hands, with scrubbing, red,
It's not the life she wanted,Nora Low.
Within her cabin walls, inside, she's dead.

She left her homeland by the marriage bed
But filling pails with water was so slow
This frontier life was tough. She'd been misled

A struggle every day to bake their bread
Her pregnant belly swelled like rising dough:
She wanted to birth books. Such longings fed

Her thoughts, her hopes, the very words she said.
She left her family, felt impelled to go
Driven by need to make her mark, she sped

And who are we to judge, who do not tread
Her footsteps? Like the white unblemished snow
Are we all perfect in the world's tableaux?
Strong Scottish morals deep in her were bred
But in her cabin walls, the girl was dead.



São Paulo
Death rides a pale horse in apocalyptic times
At Vila Formosa, the biggest cemetery in Latin America
Rituals must change with the sharp edges of days
Caused by the quicksand of death-dealing Covid

Mourners are rationed: an hour in chapel of rest
No more than 10 are allowed inside the room

Gravediggers and undertakers
Must obey new rules
Are handed a chit of paper
A code in the right hand corner
D3 for a suspected/ confirmed infected corpse

They must wear full protective suits,
They must wear masks and gloves.
Meanwhile, the favelas are running out of food

Now excavators are digging hundreds of graves,
Large rows of expectant tombs
A necropolishoneycombwaiting to be filled

Death rides a pale horse in apocalyptic times