Tag Archives: Aboriginal

Pelican Project Salute

In July 2000 New Dance Horizons in Regina Saskatchewan put together a presentation for “Dance and the Child International”.  It consisted of dance, song and poetry performed by about thirty young people many from Canada’s First Nations. I had the privilege of coaching and guiding them as they wrote their own poems.

This is the story of the teachers and young people involved.

You are the pelican warriors

You are the pelicans who do not run away
you are the pelicans that stay and fight
you are the pelicans that defend your nests
you are the pelicans that defend your tribe


You are the pelicans
who fly from your homes to find a new lake

You are the pelicans
brave enough to fly near people
(it can be dangerous to fly near people)

You are the pelicans
brave enough to fly through your fears
You are the pelicans
who know some people are your friends
who know some people need your gifts

You are the pelicans
who teach pelicans and people
how to care for their young
how to live for their tribe

How to fly and dance and swim
and fish together again

I dip my ink tipped wing
in praise of you

Qu’Appelle and ESL

This poem references the experience of First Nations children who were systematically stripped of their culture and language in Canada’s residential schools. Today is set aside in the spirit of Truth and Reconciliation and marked by the wearing of orange shirts in memory of one young girl’s experience.

https://www.orangeshirtday.org/phyllis-story.html

https://www.techlifetoday.ca/articles/2020/why-we-wear-orange-on-orange-shirt-day-nait

ALAS POOR…

ALAS POOR…

And we in this new old land turning up
with our plow
hammer heads, and arrowheads, and sometimes
a bone or two
and if one would be an uncrushed skull it would
be no Yorick that we knew

This noun, once verb, would mock us
in its grinning
all those with whom we might converse
are laid neath Hamlet’s soil

His redder kin scattered
like his bones

SACRED DANCE

SACRED DANCE

The Bushmen of the Kalahari
dance all night in a circle
dance a calf-deep trench in the sand

In a circle around the circle
sit those in need of a healing

And because it is a sacred dance
any dancer at any time may step
out of the dance and do the healing
and then return to the dance again

Knowing without knowing
that everyone is a healer sometimes
everyone needs a healing sometimes

You just keep dancing

DREAM CATCHER

DREAM CATCHER
(for Maia)

Boogie man boogie man get out of my dream
Boogie man boogie man can’t make me scream

Cause I’ve got a dream catcher over my bed
I’ve got a dream catcher right over my head

Now only sweet dreams can make it through
and boogie man boogie man that ain’t you

Boogie man boogie man get out of my dream
Boogie man boogie man can’t make me scream

You were feeding on my fears all night long
that’s what was making you big and strong

Now dream catcher and me have got you beat
so you have to eat at Susie’s down the street

Boogie man boogie man get out of my dream
Boogie man boogie man can’t make me scream

A KINDER GENTLER GOD

A KINDER GENTLER GOD

As we look around the world today we see
with God as our father in trouble all are we

Fathers as you know, often have a tendency
towards discipline, judgement and wrath
while grandparents almost always
take a wiser, gentler path

There may be much to learn
as we choose, or create our deity
from the Blackfoot, Sioux and Cree
who still gather at Grandfather’s knee