The Minor Odyssey of Lollie Heronfeathers Singer
By Lenny Everson
rev 1
Copyright Lenny Everson 2011
For Dianne, my paddle-partner
This free ebook may be copied, distributed, reposted, reprinted and shared, provided it appears in its entirety without alteration, and the reader is not charged to access it.
Cover design by Lenny Everson
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For Dianne
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Introduction
This is an entertainment. Nothing more.
It does not claim to be history, ethnology, or anything else. Any connection to real life is coincidental at best and sheer accident at worst.
Lollie and all the other people you’ll meet in this book are products of the imagination of myself, a white male.
Lenny Everson
Biography of Lollie Heronfeathers Singer
Lollie was born south of Weyburn, Saskatchewan, but was raised in Sudbury and Toronto.
Her “Aboriginal” middle name was acquired when she was four. At a river north of Sudbury her father had gone fishing. She wandered away, and was found sitting by the water, petting a heron (unheard-of behavior for these birds). The bird flew away when her parents came, but she saved three feathers, and for years steadfastly refused to give them up.
Her parents called her “feathers” while she was a child, as a family joke.
It was when she turned forty-five, and became a divorced casualty of the modern age that she started to look into her ancestry. Her mother (who died when Lollie was young) had told her that she was of Métis background, from the Red River area of Manitoba. She had both French-Canadian and Cree ancestors. (Her father told her the Singer family had started in Poland, coming to Canada before the turn of the last century.)
This is a journey she’s started only after much thought; she’s afraid of finding herself torn between two cultures (as the Métis must have been, or the native Canadians now are). She makes the journey physically, not always finding what she wants to see, and also in her poetry, which doesn’t always take her to places she thought she wanted to go.
Her poems are based on her trip and her vision of an imaginary ancestor, Heron Feathers, She knows a bit of the history of the Cree, their migration to the prairies from the forest of Ontario, the coming of the French, and the attempt to found a Métis nation.
In her minor odyssey, Lollie visits a northern Ontario town and meets a Cree, Tom Small Wolf, who practices the ancient rituals. He takes her on an overnight canoe trip to see some ancient petroglyphs. She is unmoved by the experience.
After that she drives to central Manitoba, where she despairs of her journey. But then takes herself on another canoe trip. by herself. This time, she finds petroglyphs which do affect her.
Finally, following the trail of her imaginary ancestor, she travels to the prairie lands of southern Manitoba, where the Métis settled in the Red River Valley. There she spends time with Lucy, a Métis, who tells her the history of her people.
These are her poems, about both her own journey and that of her mythological ancestor, Heron Feathers, a Cree woman who joins with a French-Canadian, Jean Dumont, and moves with him to the Red River. Lollie’s knowledge of the history, ethnology. and religion of the Métis and Cree is pretty minimal, but she doesn’t care. Dissatisfied with her own life, she is determined to redo it through poems about her mythical creation.
The whole odyssey takes place in Lollie’s 45th year, in the month of September.
Lollie’s Odyssey
In this journey, Lollie, a middle-aged white woman
- Starts out depressed and backward-looking.
- Decides on a quest.
- Argues with her son about the journey.
- Leaves with optimism.
- Gets to know a Cree medicine man in northern Ontario. He teaches her about native religion.
- Tries a canoe journey on her own out of a village in Manitoba. There she has a profound experience on finding a petroglyph site.
- Begins a fictional biography of Heron Feathers, a Cree ancestor who takes up with a French trader.
- Visits a Métis woman along the Red River, who tells her about the Métis.
- Returns home.
Heron Feathers, the creation of Lollie Singer
- Grows up on Cree land, in the deep forests of northern Ontario
- Meets a French-Canadian Courier de Bois in 1835
- Goes with him to settle on the Red River Valley of Manitoba, on the edge of the great plains
Other Incidents Described
- the first migration of the Cree into prairie landscape
Other Characters
Lloyd Davies: Former husband
John Davies: Son.
Tom Small Wolf.: Age 50. Lives in Loon Bay. Raised Christian, but is relearning, and teaching the old ways.
Lucy Bonneau: Métis woman
George Bonneau: Lucy’s brother
Heron Feathers: Lollie’s fictional Cree ancestor
Jean Dumont: Lollie’s fictional Coureur de Bois ancestor
Loon Bay: Small community in north-west Ontario.
Palmer Falls: Small community in north-central Manitoba.
Notre Dame du Portage: Town in southern Manitoba
Contents
Part 1: The Beginning
Even the Sun Goes West
When the Words Stopped
Don’t Wait Too Long
People of the Wind
Asking for Better Hues
Snakes
Bulletin Board
The Quarry
Woman Winters
Snowdreams
But He’s a Good Boy, Anyway
Not Because
Part 2: Loon Lake
I Think I Might Have Changed My Mind About the Whole Thing
Minnehaha
Landfall
Travel
Jerusalem
The Puzzle
Ten Little Indians
Peter, Water, and Church
The Canoe Becomes the Passage
Solid Rock, Creator’s Touch
Last Time We Came to Ground
Some Ancient Arts Survive
Out by Otter Lake
Three Haikus About Noise
Music by the Lake
The Foolish and the Brave
Ravens I have Met
Part 3: Heron Feathers Poems 1
Under the Infinite Ceiling
More Hills, More Trees
Sister Talk
Only Because
The Touch
Far Lands, Strange Customs
The Parting
Part of Some River
Come and Share the World
Only the Wind Knows a Woman’s True Name
Lesson
The Show
Part 4: North-Central Manitoba
Highway
Superhero
Rain
Youth
Last Butterfly from Eden
Dream
Cages for Women
On Saturday Afternoon
Condensed Service Data for Lollie Heronfeathers Singer
When to run the diagnostic test
How to run the diagnostic test
Adjustments
Tools And Supplies Required for Non-Adjustments
Error Messages
A Day in the Lost and Found
Upon This Rock
These are No Ordinary Waters
The Return
Pajamas
Part 5: Heron Feathers Poems 2
From the Stone Walls of Old Québec
Belief
When You are Not With Me
Out of a Prairie Thunderstorm
Heron Feathers and Rabbit Trails
The Reason Why
The Church
A Remarriage
Part 6: The Red River Valley
Precipice
The Transformation
Not Far Enough
Rivers
Shopworn
I Guess I’m a Métis
Fiddlesticks
Second Sight
To Birches
Taking a Trip to the Past
Let There Be Pencil
If There Were No Death
Words
Reaching for Heaven
She’s determined to believe
When They Hanged Him
The Unpeople
George’s Lament
Lucy’s Reply to George
But the Weeds Come Back
At the Legion on Bleeker Street
Nails on Sale Today
Bridge
Partly
By the Red River
Afternoons
Part 7: Heron Feathers Poems 3
Remembering the Songs
Home is Where the Hugs Were
Voices
Bones
Mud and Stars
Part 8: The Journey Home
Woman of the Wind
Exile
Dawn
Ashes
Where Do the Gods Go
The River
The Clowns
Why We Write Poems
Part 1: The Beginning
This is Lollie before she starts on her journey, up to the point where she’s driving north.
She’s been inspired to write a few poems about the immense changes her ancestors, the Cree, must have gone through when some bands moved from the deep woods to the open prairie.
It is the thought of their courage, as much as anything, that gets her moving in her own life.
Even the Sun Goes West
(Migration of the Cree from the deep woods of northern Ontario to the open plains)
Late winter in Our Forest, long cold
No rabbits, no fish, no moose;
Wendigos walking the sprucewoods.
It put Loonlaugh, the shaman, into the
Shaking tipi two days, desperate for
Spirit advice.
He came out alive, said we would go
To the land of no trees, then vomited
Under a thin birch. No-one laughed this time.
Brightsun swore at him, saying the
Great North Wind had taken him, and
Filled him with lies. “On the prairie
The North Wind will eat us each winter, and
The Nez Perce will walk on our bones.
And who can catch a buffalo?
I think we should get a new shaman.”
My mother, She-Who-Feeds-Birds, looked
Around at the other women in despair.
But I walked to a rock,
Peeled off some lichens, and
Went to the men. I chewed the lichens
In front of them.
“My daughter is hungry,” mother said.
The men started to protest, but
All the women turned to face the west
Staying there all night
Watching the stars climb down to the land of winds.
When the Words Stopped
(When a relationship is in trouble, the words get fewer. When the words stop, someone’s packing a suitcase.)
When the words stopped
My world became the empty tarmac
The hangars leaning
A paper coffee cup from yesterday’s traffic
Blowing by
To be left in silence
Is a violence of emptiness
A world without words
For me
Is the sun going down
The gray dusk washing in.
I was born the biological entity
Of companionship
Needing touch occasionally, and
Always
Kind words
When the words stopped
The cold and distant stars
Took vengeance against
This woman
Don’t Wait Too Long
(The Ticking Clock Affects Lollie’s dreams)
I didn’t know what to do when
That indigo train came hurtling
Out of the darkness
Of my dream
Again
I woke to the feel of iron
Pounding granite. I guess
Some days I am white, feet crushing granite
Someday I may be brown, becoming an eagle
The shaking was only my heart
Fran, distant friend
Died last week.
Elizabeth, cousin,
Has arthritis, real bad
I saw a Grosbeak in summer
Wrong place, bird
You should be up north
In the silence of tamarack
Every now and again
I see that train at night
Running down a maverick moose
On a lonely track
Among the poplars
Always poplars
The moonlight on its flanks
The train always dark
As the grave.
People of the Wind
(migration of the Cree from the deep woods of northern Ontario to the open plains)
We became the people
Of the wind
Wind brought us
To the coulees
Blew in the buffalo
Scattered sweetgrass smoke
Howled in the oldgrass moon
And left us silent
Hearing footsteps
Of bad spirits
On nights
When only the children
Dared sleep
We could deal with the spirits
Of the spruce woods
We had a thousand legends
Of bear and loon
But we are all silent
When a crane circles
Eight times in the morning
And the wind dies
Unexpectedly
Asking for Better Hues
(Maybe Outdoor Life would be a better choice.)
We paint the images of photos
Upon our aging faces
Time creeps up, taps our heels
With bland eyes and crooked smile
It holds out a whitewashed hand
Asking for better hues
We hand him the card.
He tests it with mossy teeth
“Not much credit left!” he whispers, and
Laughing at the helpless stars
Scuttles away for a day or two
We turn the pages of Chatelaine
Trying not to notice
Scratching sounds
Behind the chair.
Snakes
(first rumours of the French coming to the plains)
They all gathered rattlesnakes
Except the women who either
Weren’t allowed, or
Maybe knew better
And the young children
Who followed the young men
With long willow sticks
Poking into crevices where the wind
Bared rock to the sun
They all gathered rattlesnakes
For the shaman, Blind Wolf
Who wasn’t a wolf most of the time
And seldom blind
To rolling prairie valleys
They left the rattlesnake on a rock
Tail-less coiled belly to the sun a
Purple-dyed ribbon
Around its head
Its rattle in the old man’s broken hand
Its soul in his throat
He shook three futures out:
The buffalo were many
The winter would be short
But far into the sunrise, even the wolves
Were learning fear
Bulletin Board
(Lollie summarizes her life)
- Climbed that hill in the early October frost
- Would not have changed that day in the long grass, but
- Cried when I saw how frost curled the leaves of the poplars
- Spring and love compel each other
- We women create our men then try to shield them from the winter
- Big mistake
- Like leaves, sliding down my face
- Lloyd, former husband, twenty-three years, four months
- You’re looking for a last line. There isn’t one
-
The Quarry
(From Lollie, for all poets)
Soft and wide in the morning
the nets go out
as fine as
spiderwebs
Hung from limb
tied to tree
staked deep and looped round
solid granite rock
they cover the road
where night meets day
Out of a night
of angel flights
the quarry comes
to seek the daily
sunshine husk
And nights and lights
and Barbie dolls
years and fears
pale pink walls
woven into
finest mesh
It happens quite often like this
After the escape, the net
must be woven again
finer yet
Last night I remembered a birthday party
when I was twelve.
This was added
to tighten the mesh
In the morning light
with nets drawn tight
once again
I wait for me.
Woman Winters
(migration of the Cree from the deep woods of northern Ontario to the open plains)
The year the buffalo did not come
The men grumbled, rode out
Came back with a few rabbits
Some prairie chickens, no dignity
So they got louder
Ignored the children
Later that year
We ate coyote
More bothered by angered spirits
Than tough flesh
The shaman burned mushrooms
But the Grandfather Spirit
Appeared to my father’s sister
Gathering cattail roots
He came as a laughing wolf
Then she knew we women
Would keep the tribe alive
Dried roots, rabbit pemmican
And a long wait in cold snow
Bad winters are women winters
Snowdreams
(Lollie plans)
“Great day for traveling,” you think at me
March snow scudding past the windows
Of my ice-covered home and
The thermometer into a crisis of negativity
But let me tell you I’ve crossed more lands in a Canadian
Winter than I ever got to in the summers.
While the neighbour’s scraping ice from my doorstep
And the mailman’s hiding in the coffee shop
I’m sitting by a campfire
Listening to ancient stories
In my mind
And somewhere, someone
Smiles, just in case
I’m a cousin
Twelve steps removed
Only a handshake from kinship
Only a Trans-Canada highway from truth
But He’s a Good Boy, Anyway