POETRY: ARMAND GARNET RUFFO

A SONG CALLED EVENING
 
Enduring a life not lived she tried to sing a song one evening, but what came out
broke her heart and turned her into water.  Loneliness filled her body.  It so happens
that the more she moved into it the more she began to leak.  Gasping for a remedy
she hugged her sleeping babies, but it didn’t work and in the gloom she become
a river, then a rapid, turning into a torrent. She could not contain himself, it was
past eleven, and there she was past the place of returning.
 
Coming our way the size of a mountain.
The polar caps are melting the water is here
Poor man and rich will taste their fear.
 
It was a simple song, maybe a country song, or a rock song, or a song for a drum.
What she did know is that it filled the core of her being.  A song spilling out of her
heart, her eyes, her mouth, her ears.  Swept away she flowed with such force that
to her astonishment she found herself knocking down things – finally! she thought
as she collided with churches and schools, apartment buildings and grocery stories,
corner stores and offices, malls and police stations, you name it.
 
The bible people gathered to pray
While others danced and sang, and they all had one thing to say
the end of the world is here, the end of the world is here.
 
Oh my babies, she thought, stretching out her arms in front of her as she had been
taught when she was a little girl.  Oh my.  But that old feeling of emptiness,
disempowerment, shame, was fleeting because in the moment she felt for
the first time who she was, and she liked it.  Why hadn’t she been taught this?  
She knew.  She flowed with power, and she was going to use it. Hell yes.
Water is power. Water brings beginning.  That much she knew.
 
I’ve seen it it’s true there is no denying.
From each single wave they’ll be no hiding.
It will strike with all the force of creation.
 
If only she could remember more of the words, but it was getting late and it was time
to return home to snuggle her babies, tidy the place, maybe watch some tv. It was time
to pull the curtains aside. Time to clean things up. Time to make her own way. Nobody
was going to do it for her. It felt good to stretch her entire being.  She could do it,
she could make things sing as she plowed through them. This was living. This is what
would get her through another day.  Oh, how she loved her two babies.  She would
give them the world.

MEMORIAL
 
We turn on the tap
without a thought
and with a weary sigh
we greet the day
with things (to do)
while the water runs out
and we stare
like robots (as we fill our coffeepot).
And daydream
of this and that
but never all the ways
we turn on the tap
without a thought.
 
Is it because
we think everything
can be sold
and bought
as a reward
for our hard work
with our hard-earned pay?
Content to fill
ourselves
with things (to have)
while the water runs dry.
 
I can attest
it is true
I have seen the yachts.
The lakes go foul
while the speedboats play
And we continue
to turn on the tap
without a thought.
With resolve
there comes a time
to connect the dots
because the power
that is
presses to sway
and obscure
with things (desired).
 
They make us dream
we’ve hit the jackpot
a continual onslaught
but those who see
know it is time
to take a stand
breakaway
for we cannot continue
to turn on the tap
without a thought
And submit to a life
of things that are
(desired
or not).

SENTIENT
 
Between land and water so glassy
not a ripple to disturb what you see,
a plume of green tendril sweeps
across your legs like an invitation,
an invocation that awakens your body,
numb swimmer of absolute beginnings and endings.
                               Into this morning you go naked
and clear to bedrock
propelled by a shard of beauty,
of what little is left after such a long drought. What is it
that cuts through you through the exhausted surface
to a fourth dimension where fish,
                                                              turtle, loon, serpent
mingle below a necklace of cottages,
and – lo and behold – sprout from your limbs,
your trepidation, disbelief, wonderment,
nothing less than a terrestrial gulp
the size of a lake as you continue
harder than ever
to swim on.
 
 
 
"Sentient" from Treaty #, Wolsak & Wynn, 2019.

Armand Garnet Ruffo was born and raised in northern Canada and is a member of the Chapleau Fox Lake Cree First Nation.  He is recognized as a major contributor to both contemporary Indigenous literature an Indigenous literary scholarship in Canada. As an educator, he is currently the Queen’s National Scholar in Indigenous Literature at Queen’s University in Kingston, On. As a poet, he was honoured in 2016 with a “Lifetime Membership Award” from the National Council of The League of Canadian Poets. 
 
He is the author of numerous books including Norval Morrisseau: Man Changing Into Thunderbird, a finalist for a 2015 Governor General’s Literary Award, and Treaty #, a finalist for a 2019 Governor General’s Award.  His latest film is a collaboration called “On The Day the World Begins Again,” a short video poem about Indigenous peoples’ incarceration, which premiered at the Kingston Canadian Film Festival in  2019. It can be accessed at https://vimeo.com/336947329.  He most recently co-edited An Anthology of Indigenous Literature in Canada (Oxford U Press, 2020).