The Echo of Issac Brock

 

Still in uniform, but one of earth and tar:

coral epaulettes, strings of sand for hair,

a longtail for a screaming, out-of-focus hat.

Weary, but with discombobulated grin,

he passes with your annual epiphany,

learned to love French like one of his brothers.

He was between bonfires and church bells

on Confederation day – allowed himself

to be hung with Riel, for the experience,

stowed away to stand with Billy Bishop

when he looked up at an azure sky to say

“Bet you don’t get mud and horseshit

on you up there.” Brock shook his head

over church-run schools meant to take

the Indian out of the Indians, the ban on

the sun dance, the potlatch, three Chinese

lives per mile of railway. His warm smile

grew into a laugh at the wind-slap of a subway

train arriving, and he thought “You and your

journey back and forth. It isn’t that you

can’t stay, it’s that you don’t know how to cling

to anything.” His hands behind his back,

he walked in the snow with Trudeau.

He still slumbers in parts of the land,

a song and a bullet in his heart.

 

from The Least Important Man