Evidentia

This is an English translation of the poem VIEILLE MARIE, which I originally wrote in French. I am posting quite a few French poems here under the title ÉNIGME DE VIE, which reminds me of the enigma of life…

OLD MARY
By George Tombs

“Long ago,” said Old Mary with the glowing eyes,
“Long ago, once the plaintive song of the loon had fallen silent,
and the cackling of the snow geese had wandered off to the south
and the first fingers of winter ice
hissed and crackled, creating plates that ran across the lake,
covering its dreamy blue surface with a dead silence like arrows,
Well, Grandfather emerged from the shadows of the forest in moccasins.

“He knew the story of your people:
how you had come, whipping the ox ahead,
from the great ocean to Wisconsin over six moons.
How you had traded a farm in the East against a vague promise
in the West: a cabin with no roof or land around it.
He understood that your people, trembling with shock and rage,
had returned to the great ocean, still travelling on foot,
and learned that you had been tricked, that there would be no justice for the likes of you.
He saw the number of moons it had taken you to return
when dirty, hungry, still travelling on foot, you left the ocean behind you,
and crossed America a third time, returning to the cabin with no roof.
He saw that you were afraid of bears and wolves,
of any invisible danger.
The lapping blue waves. The mute crowd of pines.
The land of the Oneida
illuminated at night by the fires of my people.
You were also afraid of us, of our black hair.
Of our dreams and whispered loves. Our hopes.

Part of a panoramic photo of an Iroquois community, in the snow, around 1914. The Oneida are one of the six Iroquois nations.

“Well, Grandfather saw your own grandfather,
A little newborn, shaken by spasms of whistling and coughing:
he heard the baby’s strange voice, like a presage of the silence of death.
He saw the white doctor wearing glasses, who offered his futile science
Out of a black bag filled with various instruments,
who shrugged his shoulders and attributed
This whooping cough to obscure parasites from the Indians
saying that there was nothing to do but pray.
He saw Anna, the mother of the child, sobbing in her rocking chair,
shaking the baby as it lay dying against her breast,
this baby for whose sake she also had lived agonies.

“Well, Grandfather emerged quietly from the shadows in moccasins.
He was tall and black as a raven. He was strong. He was wise.
He knew the widower and his daughter,
and why the bear has no tail,
He knew which lakes had never taken lives
and which lakes had drowned people and why.
Since he could penetrate the future,
in his heart he was already mourning the fate of the Oneida.
But more than that, he knew the secret powers of the Earth
Which I cannot reveal: the flutes, drums,
the sacred charms that must accompany bone-setting
and plant remedies.

“‘I have just had a dream,’” Grandfather said to Anna, the mother of the child,
his voice trembling with emotion:
He saw icy death closing in on the baby.
‘You have arrived in the forest,
in this hut with no roof.
When finally, after all your striving, you had enough to get by,
then you came to our camp to feed my people
and to offer us blankets. But now it is you who are in need.
I see the town doctor did nothing.
Will you trust my medicine?’
The moment of truth had arrived.
Anna now had to choose:
between the pride of the man with glasses
and the wisdom of the ancients.
Life in this harsh land seemed too heavy to bear.
Weakly she nodded ‘yes.’

“Well, Grandfather quietly disappeared into the shadows in moccasins
collecting herbs and roots that only medicine men know.
Softly speaking words and incantations that I dare not repeat,
to restore the unity of the Earth.
He built a fire, whose flames spat blue sparks
to the top of the sentinel pines.
He prepared a broth of herbs and roots,
baring himself, and exposing his chest to the flames,
standing as close as possible.
Then he clutched the baby in his arms, and poured the broth down its throat.
Winter nights are long.
Grandfather leaned close to the flames and poured the broth into the mouth of the child,
gripping its little body until its screams finally faded at dawn.
The fever ended. This happened long ago.

“Long ago,” said Old Mary with the glowing eyes,
“Long ago a baby learned the meaning of sacrifice and love.
This is a gift that you received from the Oneida. This gift lives in your blood and your bones.
Tell your children where they come from,
before you, in your turn, disappear forever among the shadows of the forest. ”

(This poem tells how a medicine man, the grandfather of the Mohawk-Oneida women’s rights pioneer Mary Two Axe Earley, saved my grandfather Frederick C. Grant’s life in 1893, in Wisconsin. The story was told to me by my grandfather, and subsequently by Mary Two Axe Earley in 1984, at her home in Kahnawake, near Montreal. Mary’s mother Juliette Smith Two Axe was an Oneida nurse, Juliette’s father may have been Jacob (Doc) Smith, the Oneida medicine man mentioned above, while Mary’s father Dominic Two Axe and her paternal grandfather Martin Two Axe were Mohawk medicine men.)

My grandfather Frederick C. Grant often told me this story

Mary Two Axe Earley confirmed her grandfather saved my grandfather