We didn't know, so long ago
in our tiny textile town
when they closed the first mill down
it would not be the last to go

Everything would be alright
grown men working part time jobs
late night worried, anguished sobs
the unemployed now taking flight

The other mill was still going
long gone the days of over time
managers watching every dime
winds of change had started blowing

your arm moves across the space
between us,
rests on my breath

entwined in a lover's question mark
we sleep
the heat of our bodies a sweat lodge,
you carry
a medicine bundle
I hold a marriage basket
across the threshold of dreams

the spirit of heron and deer follow us,
nibbling on our flesh,
crows gather and serpents
rejoice,

we leave no dreams across a summer sky,
the burning bed catches fire,
our agreements carried by four wild winds..

"STILLBORN"
Margaret Ann Waddicor 2000
(Written for a colleague.)

A little life
cut short
for what
for why

No worldly strife
you sought
your lot
to live

No sound
no tear
no laugh
no fear

Oh cruel fate
open the gate
that we may enter
and unite.

in echoes of faraway silence
in naked stones and sassafras root
and the prick of thistles

it lingers

like the white cries of
Cree spirits to the lumbering Milk River

and an angry sun
on its bruised cornflower canvas of sky
stares at the sad faces of painted pansies
through slanting shafts of grey

wishing

to wash over the dancing dust
of billowing prairie grasses

to softly shower away
the quiet