3 poems by shalan joudry

© Dan Froese

Original poetry © shalan joudry

 
shalan joudry is an award-winning Mi’kmaw writer, oral storyteller, podcast producer, drummer/singer, and ecologist. Using her theatrical background, shalan brings Mi’kmaw stories to a new generation of listeners, as well as recounting personally-crafted narratives that follow Indigenous storying methodologies. shalan has published two books of poetry, Generations Re-merging (Gaspereau Press 2014) and Waking Ground (Gaspereau Press (2020). Waking Ground was shortlisted for numerous poetry awards.  Her next poetic book, Kmitkinu (our homeland), is one poem in five parts, describing the need for communal healing from colonial histories. This poem was translated 12 times and all together will be published in a limited run by Running the Goat Books and Broadsides. shalan lives with her family in their community of L’sitkuk (Bear River First Nation), Nova Scotia, where she is reclaiming her Indigenous language.

“Regrowing” is from Generations Re-merging (Gaspereau Press, 2014) while the two other poems are from Waking Ground (Gaspereau Press, 2020).

Regrowing

after a great devastation

when the land is singing itself back

it is sometimes the unfortunate fate of the red spruce

to know two worlds

having been born into a system

when white birches and aspens blanket

where it had been broken or burned

an orchestra of sprouting and falling

competing for light

but they held together underground

everything was known

had its place

those red spruce who survived

dropped branches

reached up

grew harder

everything became renamed

re-spaced among the hemlocks and us still redding

how my father will tell stories of those days

when being Mi’kmaw was a dreaded fate

now everything’s grown damp

new scents to tell the weather by

who’s reaching for the light, daughter?

we don’t mind the shade now, father

though i know how he laboured for light

when there wasn’t any room

it is sometimes the unfortunate fate of the red spruce

to have grown up in a known land

cycled through to something else

Where were you then? 

you are remembering

when alliances were baptized

before the war spilled across the atlantic

landing on our shores to navigate

the barricades and trenches of faith

the first set of quakes held some together

tied knots, hid children

sent snipers in for each other’s return

yet the decades of strife quivered the mind

fatigued the fingers

from holding 

to letting go

when forced to abandon the land

which you had learned to entangle yourselves with

you left us staring down the barrels

alone

when we had nowhere else to run to

roped onto rocky hills, outlawed

and severed from coast and territory

where were you then?

as you trickled back

were granted other lands to start anew

ours was repeatedly shrunk

our voices denied

our children kidnapped

but where were you then?

now that we finally have a footing

stitching the seams of possibility

reclaiming a livelihood

returning voice to our children

here you are

wanting to be in-lawed, re-membered

then show us what it means to be come-unity

be here when the novel fan-fare ends

Ceremony for the end of the day

when the herons fly home-bound at dusk

lifting the last current of warm air

the river route is long and arduous

when the hardship of flight has peaked and tempered

go ahead, remove your ornaments

watch your hands articulate the unlayering

a ceremony of undoing

hang your garments with certainty

acknowledging how many generations survived

and how today you held space

walk barefoot to samqwan *

inhale with the force of gravity

rattle loose the fragments lodged

where you never thought you’d heal

let your breath reach all the places

you didn’t trust to keep you steady

sip water from your cupped hands

roll it over you like a thunderstorm

and exhale

so slowly that every bit of you melts

sap going back to  ground

roots throbbing from thirst

herons shake their feathers

fold their wings

and rest

~~~
* samqwan, water.

For more about shalan joudry

• Author’s website: https://shalanjoudry.com/
• “The Little People. Teachings by shalan joudry”, The Preservation Project
• “How being still in nature can remind us of what it means to be human”, CBC

 Original poetry © shalan joudry ~

Siwar Mayu, april 2025