TRAILS OF LIFE

  It’s a vision of mine, on a island, in this small centre, on a journey in the medicine wheel,

   Forty years took it’s toll, upon this soul, he’s a heart of gold, but a man that’s very bold,

   To capture an echo and still not sure if life, not time is real,

   But now, I’m writing rhymes, all the time, looking for words to suit, no words of mine, I could not define, and then I wrote to, HIS, appeal.

   Many things humans must do, while passing a short travel on this solid earth,

   His remains and sometime too, they placed him beneath the name, one by one, side by side, generation’s pass by,

   I’d like to heed, what mankind has forgot, only of they are  good memories, not those that make me sad and cry,

   While wandering about this turf, since birth, 

   At last you’ll read and I’ll speak no more of our women/man, upon this land, who die. 

“To the North”

   Travelling to, Great Northern Peninsula to meet some kind of mind,

   I stood across from St.Johns Island, where our buddy, Mattie Mitchell stayed sometime,

   Then a grave site, I came upon, with alters among the decade, looked like a torn up lawn, and small mountains to lend a shade,

   But, that’s not all, there were holes dug and the bodies that were there, were gone. 

“To the East”

   Then to the big city, on the south side of St.John’s,

   Shanawdithit’s mound that will last, only one of her kind, many people so fond, I could feel everybody’s thought, she’s at rest alongside,

   In solid cliff, on a blade of man made grass, a tombstone, facing the sky,

   We visit quite awhile, but in the end, I would not have a friend, if the truth, I could see, was a lie. 

“To the South”

   I got eager and travelled South on to the Val of Conne, I seen at once, an ancient burial site, 

  Reminding me of, time , but lay their quite at home, with kin, in an Indian stile,

  A big black bear, was eyeing me, shade me not to there, enter that circle of life, around our people at rest,

  So I sang a chant and left with ease, never to return again.

“To the West”

   Then unsure, I went back to the west, where my people also lay, and to St. George’s grave site I was shown…

   Now at this road area, I felt uptight, my great-great grandfather and mother were bulled away, to prevent six feet of land on the opposite side of the fence,

   When the parish told me this, I prayed for the spirits 

to be in control of that task,

   Because from my loving Mother it was taught  to me, to be humble, to those err of the past, and times in life they’ll meet and greet, too final judge their cast.

“To the centre” 

   

   After those trips, I trailed no more,

   Until a friend, Victor French, ordered a helicopter and landed me on an Isle on the Island in Newfoundland,

   Glover Island, it was called by name, twenty –seven miles long,

    Into a sacred place where I’d rest my bones, just walk and heel my thought with the orchestra of natural sound.

    Strangest visions in my life appeared before me,

    Tones of gold under the crusts of the beaded white stone, that was land locked for billions of years,

    My senses grew, those unseen stones, I’ve seen before, 

    Where people think, was untouched by other generations because they could never reach the shores. 

    

   This mighty Island of gorge, I stayed a month or more,

   Studying the natural habitat, especially our mother’s nature call the loon, with medicine of glory to cure my sores,

   At a hut, in a Garden of Eden, the blackened boron, king of his domain, though each other to share, still I had to settle a score,

   And chased the dog, to my last cross, on a rock in the forks of the road. 

  

    Finely, I heard the echo, and perched at the height of a bog, the Elder Eagle Catcher,  my brother Len,  and four cubs he’s standing beside,   

    Then one bear carrying a loaf of bread, and fish I left to thaw and pondered on to hide,

    That delinquent child reminded me of a scripture I read in the Holy Bible, but he was here before my time, that’s why I’ll never ever get sore,

    On the end, I did stand, where my people stood before, 

     Then I saw the remains of an ancient site, Beothics, Mic’mac, Eskimo where they would mate, and eat the bearing fruit and divided mankind into the fourth. 

   Composed Dec.10, 2005 at the closing of the Trails of Life.