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