DAVID, MY BROTHER

That cold February morning when you came / I did not want

you / 'Take him back,' I said / My three-year-old heart

appalled at your bald head / And the fact that you were

not my sister / Instead you crept inside my heart / Still

I continued to send you away / galled because you dogged

my footsteps


Angered that you were ever the baby / Given the warm

and best / The single Sunday afternoon seat in our old Ford

pickup / I left to keep watch on ailing, aging Uncle Bert

My dentist trip denied / because our father promised you

the drive to New Germany / Unattended my tooth grew

sturdy, crooked and ugly


Your grubby little boy hands always

held the biggest half of his heart


On Wednesday mornings / in the Lunenburg County fog

I picked the long row of pickling cucumbers / Sharp spines

pricked my fingertips / You allowed to play / 'He's too young

for such hard work,' they said / My heart bled / All sense of

being loved quickly draining away / and dying


Yet years later / at some undefined moment / your poor

frail body racked and broken / you too lay dying

What was I doing / that moment your heart stopped beating

and I didn't know? / And when I heard / my heart broke too

Shattered into a million wet and glistening pieces

Thin shards that / even now / pierce my body


I hear your voice / See your smile / Meet you on occasion

in a grocery aisle / On the small square of earth / that marks

your grave / I ask Annette to choose two white roses

place them gently in the fading Labour Day light / Crickets

anoint the air with their sweet hymn / I am afraid my fingers

pricked by the rose / might not release the stem / Let you go

8Se09

BROTHER (Born too soon)

Summer 1958

This morning I open the gift you give me
Wrapped in the thin breath of a Lunenburg County spring

A wreath of mist-scented mayflowers
Fragile skin, palest pink Leaves tough as leather

Grey granite boulders Their rough cries cut
In a dank distant past and delivered
To this hallowed pasture with intense faith
By some fierce and fiery glacier

Keddy Brook sings its bright melody
Thick and brown it skips over stones
Dipping my fingers into its holy well
I sprinkle your invisible bones
In not living, you avoid death
Sweet stranger who now inherits Jacob's land

I christen thee Jacob
Lift you into the hands
Of an all forgiving God

Centuries from now - long after
I am gone - your young spirit
Will splash through this brook
Still dance on this land
Our sacred trust

You bought this for me with your blood


NOTES: Birthed in Elsie's upstairs bedroom
Your only blanket this chilled hush
A solemn murmur of voices
Alone in my room, I listen
Dr. Bennett's feet retreat down the stairs
No one breathes...

2005 Aug 27

Julianna’s Death 1791

The Boutilier Murders


Morning is silver soft

The ocean weeps
Its thin veil sweeps in
A heavy shroud over
the granite shore boulders
Creeps up the bank
Breaks on balsam fir and birch
Blesses the wild alders

Stifle the ocean's quiet moan
Let nothing breathe

Fingers sift cinders
Night's harsh breath
Charred logs
broken by flame
This strange dance
of sacrificial death
cracked open by one
fierce stroke of
the neighbour's iron pivee

Last night's pyre
yields up its bodies
Cross-piled in the ashes
Anointed by black blood
A girl... The old man...
And at last... underneath
cradling them both
Julianna

Spirit sliced from
her plump German flesh
by one wild blow
thrown in anger by
the Boutiliers' hatchet

Far from her Vaterland birth

Earth
becomes
flesh
becomes
earth

The ocean roars and weeps
Hide... Oh hide your soft secrets

With reverent fear
stiff arthritic fingers
brush back a thick
layer of ash

The ocean cleaves and rolls
Protect... Oh protect these savaged souls

Unseen, the Unknown God
gets up from His throne
In one swift sweep scoops
Julianna's breath
off the ash heap

Cleanses the dust
Transforms it in a flash
to mirth-filled dancing bone

Forgiven... Scrubbed... Reborn
She runs safely home


NOTES: The night had been thick. The sea rolled a great deal.
Two months later, the brothers were hanged at the scene of the murder.

Songs of My Father

the passing seasons
Grandmother was a big woman
'Did ya see any caribou
tracks, Josie?' she'd say
When he come back from the barn

The morning heaving heavy with frost

The snow was maybe three feet thick
And she fixed our throats with molasses
Mixed with a bit of white
Scraped off chicken dung
One of her boys went to Chicago
He got rich there on cattle

Yah, Lavinia was a big woman, alright

Will never did get back

She spoilt me some rotten
Left letters for the witches
At the foot of my bed
(I don't know why)

Grandfather had a heart attack
As he sat countin' the day's wages
Out of his leather blacksmith's pouch

She took him back to Begger Settlement
Buried him with her people
Up against the cemetery fence
(There'd been a fight about
Ploughed-over graves
Seeded down with grain
In Pleasant River)

No, Will never did get back
And it took eight men
To haul her down the hill
Thro' wheel ruts and muck
That spring she passed on.

*******************
travelling the Barrens Road

That turn in the road back there
Once that was Badger's Corner

Though I never knew why it was

Some desperate narrow
Then... We watched out for it
In the winter with the sledges

In case you went off

There was ledges on one side
Badger's Corner was some mean
I never knew why they called it that

*****************
living the life

They was desperate poor
Living back there off the road

And eatin' just mostly
Rabbits and such

Mother kept all 14 of us fed
Fresh bread every day
And big skillets full of hash
A hundred pound bag
Of flour each week

They sure was desperate poor...

Bleeding Hearts

We have packed hurriedly

The sad news came last night
At the end of a gloriously
Bright late summer's day

'David has gone,' Lorraine says

Our voices break and mingle
With such inadequate tears

For years we have dreaded
This moment now standing
Before us raw and bare

Lock the door ... Pack the car
I look down and notice
I am wearing my red sandals

Remember our first sorrow

I am 11 ... David only 7
Preparing for our infant sister's funeral
I wear red ankle socks - my last clean pair

'Dad, tell her she can't wear red...'
Our brother's voice cuts the air

Decades older ... No wiser
I close my eyes
Slide down the silent years
On my knees
Mop up the blood with prayer
Listen for your voice

3-9-09