Mr Dear Readers and Friends:
Today, people across Canada are attending gatherings to mark the 4th annual National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. The day, also known as Orange Shirt Day, officially honours residential school survivors and Indigenous cultures as steps toward reconciliation.
One way of posing the "question of who Canadians are" ... is by asking whose lives are considered valuable, whose lives are mourned, and "whose lives are considered un-grievable."
-- paraphrasing Judith Bulter
I would like to share my poems selected for reflections on National Day for "Truth" and "Reconciliation:"
alone, she stares
through a half-open door ...
the EXIT sign
lights the priest's face
and a naked boy, bent over
PoemHunter, July 6 2021
sixth graders
in the windowless classroom
on the reserve
a new teacher talks about
thinking outside the box
Atlas Poetica, 36, 2019
edge of the reserve
a policeman’s voice fills
the gaps in her wailing
NeverEnding Story, September 30 2022
candlelight vigil ...
another hardcover report
on racism
Cattails, April, 2021
Orange Shirt Day
an Elder's ten-year-old self
sobs into the dark
NeverEnding Story, September 30 2021
To conclude today's Special Feature post, the following tanka shows a glimpse of the harsh reality on the ground:
my Elder friend
murmurs to himself:
the only time
Indigenous people in the news
drumming, dancing, drunk or dead
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