[Music]
the first poem I’m going to share with
you was inspired by this place not this
new coming School of Medicine but the
old foothills hospital main hospital
space and it is about origins 6:45 a.m.
to 12:15 p.m. October 19 2002 foothills
Hospital Calgary the bed was too narrow
and anyway I preferred the Blue exercise
ball the rock and bounce in sync with
the ache rising in my back it would grip
and grip and hold before dripping away
from the ball I saw the wide window
ledge flat vents and thick glass edged
by salmon colored curtains outside it
was morning more and more the city squat
in the smog and the panes came more and
more voices chatted casually around me
while in me you rotating down I groaned
you round and down the small Midwife
appeared at my shoulder her hair dark
and fresh cheeks smooth warm little
hands told me to stand up and though I
didn’t want to interrupt our Rocking I
followed towering over her with my
mother’s long bones and with this large
work my eyes could keep nothing out the
harsh rectangle of a room tubes and
machines blue knit blanket on the bed
horrid pink chairs my husband’s must
hair a plastic cup with ice in it and a
straw the wide metal door ajar no one
and nothing in that room was inside my
pain like you were my son it was just
you and me five floors up cars coming
and going in the parking lot below
little red cars and brown cars and I
yelled out wanting help for us but no
one came though they were right there
and then I was all muscle and pushing
and the glaring square of a room
turned into one stretching circle as
your head came finally to my hands and
the dry dry air
everything around us receded
I remember the wetness of your dark hair
I remember my lips on your skin and the
purple pulsing fullness of you where you
lay over my wide new heart alone in the
shower an hour or so later umbilical
cord cut and tied separate now from
everyone from even you I let fall my
fears what had begun as a collaboration
of love would always be beginning ever
distinct always entwined I begin you
begin we begin our origins go further
back then our births our mothers our
motherhood what do we learn from the
land even those of us of colonial
heritage now that we call Western Canada
this place in southern Alberta home what
do we learn about our futures if we go
to the land with our questions this poem
has an epigraph so a little beginning
quote from environmentally significant
areas of Alberta volume 2 1997 page 52
silver berry and thorny Buffalo berry
shrubbery and fescue and wheat grass
grassland interspersed with drainages
and small alkali ponds includes some
small patches of cultivation glacial
erratics of the foothills erratic strain
esker widespread patches of rare little
bluestem MD of Willow Creek toward the
Buffalo jump
when I find a hummock of sage I lie on
my back and pretend to be a kind I wore
earr on Vision Quest the topsoil is
wispy thin but my senses root cricket
jumps onto my thigh jumps off some small
thing nearby squeaks a bird in the high
hot blue is too small for me to guess
but I guess anyway rough legged hawk I
hope I haven’t stepped on any rare
little blue stems on my way here I am
frying even behind dark glasses the
light is white and rippling this place
takes a full southern quarter of my
imagination so I wait it out a bit
snakeskin prickly pear scour wind
listening and visioning share the same
requirement I am very small on the esker
entirely colonial don’t really know the
plants of this place not even their
names not their flowers or their
medicine if my power is as vital as one
seed in one berry that is significant
magnificent suddenly I want to apologize
need to leave this land be when I go
home will I find a circle of welcoming
hands when I go home will I put my hands
my mind to good use when I go home will
I remember what precedes usefulness I
will go home dream a fescue dream of
sage
[Applause]
the first poem I’m going to share with
you was inspired by this place not this
new coming School of Medicine but the
old foothills hospital main hospital
space and it is about origins 6:45 a.m.
to 12:15 p.m. October 19 2002 foothills
Hospital Calgary the bed was too narrow
and anyway I preferred the Blue exercise
ball the rock and bounce in sync with
the ache rising in my back it would grip
and grip and hold before dripping away
from the ball I saw the wide window
ledge flat vents and thick glass edged
by salmon colored curtains outside it
was morning more and more the city squat
in the smog and the panes came more and
more voices chatted casually around me
while in me you rotating down I groaned
you round and down the small Midwife
appeared at my shoulder her hair dark
and fresh cheeks smooth warm little
hands told me to stand up and though I
didn’t want to interrupt our Rocking I
followed towering over her with my
mother’s long bones and with this large
work my eyes could keep nothing out the
harsh rectangle of a room tubes and
machines blue knit blanket on the bed
horrid pink chairs my husband’s must
hair a plastic cup with ice in it and a
straw the wide metal door ajar no one
and nothing in that room was inside my
pain like you were my son it was just
you and me five floors up cars coming
and going in the parking lot below
little red cars and brown cars and I
yelled out wanting help for us but no
one came though they were right there
and then I was all muscle and pushing
and the glaring square of a room
turned into one stretching circle as
your head came finally to my hands and
the dry dry air
everything around us receded
I remember the wetness of your dark hair
I remember my lips on your skin and the
purple pulsing fullness of you where you
lay over my wide new heart alone in the
shower an hour or so later umbilical
cord cut and tied separate now from
everyone from even you I let fall my
fears what had begun as a collaboration
of love would always be beginning ever
distinct always entwined I begin you
begin we begin our origins go further
back then our births our mothers our
motherhood what do we learn from the
land even those of us of colonial
heritage now that we call Western Canada
this place in southern Alberta home what
do we learn about our futures if we go
to the land with our questions this poem
has an epigraph so a little beginning
quote from environmentally significant
areas of Alberta volume 2 1997 page 52
silver berry and thorny Buffalo berry
shrubbery and fescue and wheat grass
grassland interspersed with drainages
and small alkali ponds includes some
small patches of cultivation glacial
erratics of the foothills erratic strain
esker widespread patches of rare little
bluestem MD of Willow Creek toward the
Buffalo jump
when I find a hummock of sage I lie on
my back and pretend to be a kind I wore
earr on Vision Quest the topsoil is
wispy thin but my senses root cricket
jumps onto my thigh jumps off some small
thing nearby squeaks a bird in the high
hot blue is too small for me to guess
but I guess anyway rough legged hawk I
hope I haven’t stepped on any rare
little blue stems on my way here I am
frying even behind dark glasses the
light is white and rippling this place
takes a full southern quarter of my
imagination so I wait it out a bit
snakeskin prickly pear scour wind
listening and visioning share the same
requirement I am very small on the esker
entirely colonial don’t really know the
plants of this place not even their
names not their flowers or their
medicine if my power is as vital as one
seed in one berry that is significant
magnificent suddenly I want to apologize
need to leave this land be when I go
home will I find a circle of welcoming
hands when I go home will I put my hands
my mind to good use when I go home will
I remember what precedes usefulness I
will go home dream a fescue dream of
sage
[Applause]
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