MURDOCHBURNETT:

        A LIFE MAKING POEMS

 

A Good Day to Die

I have tried in my way

to be free. 

                                                 Leonard Cohen

 Calgary, Canada, October 12, 1992

Sunrise on the plains begins

as a red line on the horizon.  A line

between light and dark under a paling

canopy of stars.  In dawnlight the plains

are featureless, eternal.  All time

is present in the dawn.  I am standing

on the plains at the dawn of a new day,

looking around me.  I could be anywhere in

time, free in time.  You can come with me

if you want to.  If you will.

We can be free in time.

 

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I want to tell this story again, make it sacred

if I can.  The story of the coming here,

the being here.  People pass along but the stories remain, waiting to be told and remembered.  The stories remain.  They rise like the Sweet Grass Hills, south of here,

rise and grow in the light.  I want to tell

this story again.  As I have learned it,

remembered it.  Here we are on the plains

in the dawn with the stories all around us.

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Most came light and passed along.

They left nothing but that which must be

imagined, remembered.  The wind is cold

coming off the ice fields a mile thick and

centuries old.  Here on these plains

the ice sheets meet and form a corridor

through which the great herds flow.

Flow like time and the people follow the herds, through time.  Camel, mammoth, sabre toothed cat, giant bison, all met here and in turn were met by the people, through all time.

They met and flowed along through time.

The ice fields shift and shift again

and remove the markes of their passing.

 

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Here we are free in time on the plains.

Free to listen to the stories, they echo

in the dawn.  Free to remember what has been.

Free to imagine what might have been and never

was.  The red line on the horizon boils within

itself as if it would hold to this moment forever.

Hold to the place between light and dark so the stories can always be heard.  Listen. The sound of millions of hooves as the great herds wheel through the seasons, through all time.  This is a story both sacred and profane. Listen to the stories of those who follow, endlessly, through all time.  Remember what was.  Remember what never was but might have been.

Listen.

No one discovered these plains.

This is not the new world.  The coming here

was from everywhere and through all time

on this ancient earth.  The stories of the coming

here are ancient, endless, and made new,

made sacred, in each telling.  The stories are

like the red line on the horizon made new

each day on this ancient earth.  The stories

of the coming here, the being here, echo all

around us, if we listen.  Some passed quick and

left no trace.  Some came slow and stayed. 

They did not leave much.  Only the ways of being

here.  The stories.  They did not take much.

These are the Real People.  Others came hard

and left their mark.  Everything else, they took,

all around us.  Storeis made new, made sacred

in the telling.  Even the profane is made new,

made sacred, in the telling.

Listen.

 

Some came light but left their stories,

cut into stone so no one would forget

their passing.  Others came light but stayed

forever.  Some say they came from the east,

some say from the north.  They say they came

light, from the earth Nato'se made, from the clay

Napi shaped.  They came light and stayed forever,

living in the ways the long ago ones taught,

through all time.  We know the name they call

themselves.  They are called Nitsitapi, the Real

People.  They are standing at the centre of

their world, forever.  Their name echoes

across the plains.  Nitsitapi.

The Real People.

Look now.  The sun is rising and will begin

another journey across the sky.  From where

it comes began another coming here, being here.

These came hard.  They came hard and stayed.

They left their mark and leave it still.

Everything else, they took.  They are a story,

told and retold.  Made sacred they think

in each telling.  I want to tell this story now.

Make it sacred it I can.  I want to make

this profane story sacred.  Look now.

The sun is rising.  From where it comes began

a story.  We do not know the names of these first light skinned invaders.  Nameless Carthaginian

sailors, Irish monks, Basque fishermen,

Norse pirates coming here through time

unrecorded. Then, suddenly, the names and dates

are burnt on memory forever.  Columbus,

Christopher from Genoa.

Look to the east at the sun now rising.

This is the god of this place, these plains

and from whom all blessings come.

Thunder is venerated here and buffalo

is most sacred of all.  And the people have

godliness to them.  The people stand at

the centre of the world and look around them.

Here there is no need to subdue the earth and

have dominion.  Here we live in the circle of

seasons and wheel like mandala through time,

free in time.  Some came hard to this place,

scratched the earth with sticks and lived

like badgers in the earth.  They brought

their stories with them and so did not listen

to the stories that still echo here.

They came hard to this place,

in the name of God.

 

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One day Old Man determined that he would make a woman and child; so he formed them both the woman and the child, her son, of clay.  After he had moulded the clay in human shape, he said to the clay, "You must be people,"

and then he covered it up and left it and went

away. The next morning he went to the place and

took the covering off and saw that the clay shapes had changed a little.  The second morning there was still more change and the third still more.  The fourth morning he went to the place, took the covering off, looked at the images and told them to rise and walk and they did so.  They walked down to the river with their Maker and then he told them that his name was Napi, Old Man.  As they were standing by the river, the woamn said to him, "How is it?  Will we always live, will there be no end to it?"  He said, "I have never thought of that.  We will have to decide it.  I will take this buffalo chip and throw it in the river.  If it floats, when people die, in four days they will become alive again. They will die for only four days.  But if it sinks, there will be an end to them."

 

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We can be free in time.  We can stand

at the centre of the world and look around us

in the light of this new day.  We can be here

light.  It is good to be alive at the dawn

of this day.  It is also a good day to die.

We will become a story, remembered,

in the dawn.  We can be free in time.

If we want to.

If we will. 

 

Born 1451, died 1506, penniless and unknown.

Landed in Guanahani, territory of Lucanyans,

October 12, 1492. Greeted, as so many of those

takers would be, in friendship.  This is a story,

told and retold.  They came here, in the name

of God. 'And God blessed them and said unto

them be fruitful and multiply and replenish

the earth and have dominion over the fish and

over every living thing that moveth upon

the earth.'  This was a story told among

a small desert tribe, far from here, long ago.

It was a story, sacred then, of how to live

in this desert and they handed this story down

to their children and it was good.

But the next children and the next carried

this story to other places where it did not belong.  Some came hard here, a sword in one hand, a bible in the other, in the name

of their god.

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They came in waves like the waves that rolled

across the great inland sea this once was.

They came from the east, the colour of dawnlight and so were named for Old Man, the dawnlight man and like Old Man they had great power.  They came and they came. They came hard, left their mark and leave it still. They came in the name of a god that was not of this place.  It is said amongst the Real People that Old Man has gone from here awhile. Napi is gone but he said he would return. He said he would come here and find it greatly changed.  We can be free in time.  Free to imagine what might have been and never was.  Listen.  They came from the east, from the light and so came to light.  They were dawnlight people and so listened to the stories of the dawnlight man who made them.

 

 

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He threw the chip into the river, and it floated.

The woman turned and picked up a stone

and said, "No, I will throw this stone in the river.  If it floats we will always live.  If it sinks people must die, that they may always be sorry

for each other and be remembered." The woman threw the stone into the water, and it sank. "There," said Old Man, "you have chosen.  There will be an end to them."

It was not many nights after the woman's

child died and she cried a great deal for it.

She said to Old Man, "Let us change this.

The law that you first made, let that be a law."

He said, "not so. What is made law must be law.  We will undo nothing that we have done.  The child is dead but it cannot be changed.

People will have to die."

That is how we came to be people.

It is he who made us.

 


 

In a brilliant evocation of the great turning points of the history of the western plains,

author Murdoch Burnett explores the effects of the introduction of European culture to Southern Alberta and Montana.  The reader is taken on a journey through the plains

- a journey into the heart of the land.