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| PHOTO BY SI |
It
was our epic drive across these divergent landscapes.
In
a country we called Home.
Picturesque
is Nature’s splendour, with exquisite attention to detail.
But
historic.
In
the many calamitous paths the country trampled through
to
create this current civilization of systems that…
…robbed
Indigeneity,
…silenced
the whizzing of struggling arrows,
…roared
the boom, boom of guns and royal proclamations,
…sanctioned
the abduction of brown-skinned children from all they knew,
…forced
them into dark, shadowy corridors that echoed the filthy thoughts of desperate
men and women, of faith.
And
so infrastructures were built on an annihilation.
My
baby and I heard the longing whispers of the lost children,
who
were now mere spectres of their former glorious selves,
wandering
heaving forests and searching hungry ravines,
pouring
forth their drink and distress, into wells,
that
swallowed up the harm done with a shushhhhhhhh
lasting
for generations, shameful secrets of a budding nation.
From
the Westcoast to the Eastcoast, we whizzed by multiple unmarked graves,
Of
the missing and murdered,
At
that time, hashtags did not exist, so the world remained in utter ignorance of
#MMIW.
Our
country protected for the while from the inevitable disgrace that came too late.
Over
the sound of an exhausted, gurgling minivan,
filled
to the top of clutter and wares from lives we left behind,
my
baby and I steered with cautious speed as we caught the devious glints of disappearing
sunlight.
We
drove some nights under sky so mystically obscure,
we
feared we too would become insignificant stats,
but
we were privileged to have the gods on our side.
Upon
crossing the defining lines between fascination and monotony,
We
headed northward to spend a few lazy days in good company.
No
moonlight to offer a safe way to our destination, only the infrequent glare of
oncoming traffic.
But
as we edged closer to a lonesome stretch, driving up, up into hills unknown,
we
looked through the windshield to observe a curiosity hovering above,
We
slowed, my foot on the brakes, in awe.
It
was as if an invisible hand were painting the atmosphere.
Thick
brush strokes of incandescent green hues.
This
lustrous phenomenon of jade and emerald tapered off,
floating
down, vanishing into the artificial lights of the highway
We
marveled at the flight of time through this hypnotic haze,
beckoning
us to greater heights,
to
a greater recognition of our frailties,
a
knowing that we shall reap what we sow,
For
then the Heavens painted in green.
In
that moment, my baby and I witnessed a transcendence of millions,
from
the atrocities of a wounded past,
they
moved back to that familiar home of grace and abundance,
where
they once spoke the tongues of animals and insects, of trees and grass, of rivers
and streams, of hills and earth.
And
then the Heavens painted in green,
And
then the Heavens painted in green,
Lighting
up the starkness of a brutal truth,
And glowing
with the promise of a triumphant resurrection.
