April Bulmer | Cambridge, ON | LCP member for 23 years

Blood

The native spirits tread softly,
bear sweet grass
in medicine hide pouch.
They have flown to me
over the River Grand
for I, too, was once an Indian:
tall and lean,
my face a shade of sun.
My hair was long and loose
and my hands moved
like brown birds
among fields of corn.
My babies turned
in my womb
as flowers will bloom.
For my man planted them
like seeds in early morn.

Ghosts came to me then, too:
my mother in buckskin
rode a spirit colt.
She tapped a little drum
and offered me its rhythm.
I play it still.
It is my heart.

But tonight the spirits come
for I have lost my father.
Horses have drawn him
upon a little cart.
The natives hold me
in their smoke.
I mourn as an old soul:
cry a new lore
at dawn.

***
April Bulmer has had six books published by Cormorant Books, Trout Lily Press, Black Moss Press, Serengeti Press and Leaf Press.  Her work has appeared in such publications as The Malahat Review, Arc, PRISM international, Harvard University’s The Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, and Not A Muse.

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