the red files
The Red Files
Lisa Bird-Wilson
2016
Copyright © Lisa Bird-Wilson, 2016
all rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without prior permission of the publisher or, in the case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from Access Copyright, the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency, www.accesscopyright.ca, [email protected].
Nightwood Editions
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Gibsons, BC v0n 1v0
Canada
cover design: Angela Yen
typography: Carleton Wilson
Black and white cover images: The General Synod Archives Anglican Church of Canada
Nightwood Editions acknowledges financial support from the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and the Canada Council for the Arts, and from the Province of British Columbia through the British Columbia Arts Council and the Book Publisher’s Tax Credit.
This book has been produced on 100% post-consumer recycled,
ancient-forest-free paper, processed chlorine-free
and printed with vegetable-based dyes.
Printed and bound in Canada.
CIP data available from Library and Archives Canada.
978-0-88971-316-1 (paper)
978-9-88971-067-2 (ebook)
Dear once and future kin:
kisâkihitin
The road we travel is equal in importance to the destination we seek.
There are no shortcuts. When it comes to truth and reconciliation, we are all forced to go the distance.
—Justice Murray Sinclair,
Chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada,
to the Canadian Senate Standing Committee on Aboriginal Peoples,
September 28, 2010
I
Mourning Day
these braids remember the women
trembling clump of girlflesh
eyes cast down and away
unfamiliar now
to one another
they mourn the loss
of their hair
dropped
like so many laments
clipped connections
to mothers, kohkums or aunties
who greased and wove
the glossy braids
with steady brown fingers
fat braids remember
cry like useless ropes on the floor
the girls long, at least
to step over them
in quiet ceremony
women-power mimicry
to mark the passage
a final regret
but cruel teachers clack
heathen
and refuse to appreciate
these braids remember the women
Mischief
Miss Spencer arrives on a Friday by train
a tissue tucked in her sweater sleeve
her suitcase in one long hand, the vision
to civilize clutched carefully in the other
the farm instructor brings the truck
she folds her tall self neatly
onto the passenger seat like an origami bird
allows herself to be jostled
up the bumpy road to the school
it’s fair to say she starts with zeal
and a bundle of good will
but soon finds her expectations dashed
salvation more ephemeral than real
for two years she lives at the school
and takes photos of the little girls’ class
they come out in sepia tones, their
everyday dresses brown or beige
shapeless sacks like paper bags of loneliness
later, when Miss Spencer has the pictures developed
she’s surprised: the aura that surrounds
the girls not nearly as melancholy
as she remembers; instead,
there’s some mischief in the little girls’ smiles
and the light is bright in the sky—
eyes
