Morning in the West: A Book of Verse

Cun-ne-wa-bum--"one who looks on stars"-- (Feel the singing wind from out the western hills) "The tip-end of a swan's wing is her fan, With a handle of porcupine quills." Here is the artist's name, Paul Kane; Painting in forty-seven, at Edmonton, I see. That was when prairies were untamed, And untamed this young Cree.

What an incantation in her name! Magic as her dark face underneath the stars; There is sword-like wind about it wrapped, And echoes of old wars.

Cun-ne-wa-bum! When turtle shells were rattling, And the drums beat for the dance In the great hall of the Factor's house till dawn, You sat without the door, Where the firelight on the floor Caught the red of beads upon your moccasins.

At evening through the grassy plains the wind Came shouting down the world to meet the dawn, And with the wind the firelight rose and fell, Answered with flame his shrill barbaric yell, And died like whining fiddles at his feet. And through it all the constant sound of drums-- Did your feet move to drums?

The men from near and far, Crees and Sarcees, And a Blackfoot brave or two, Made rhythm of a dance that moves like rhyme To the rush of wind, and rattles swung in time To the constant, constant, constant beat of drums.

No Indian woman dances in the light; Silent they sit together out of sight. But to-night I think this artist from the East, Who had come to paint the natives hereabout, Found a splendid flare of crimson on the feast And moved near the open door, Where the firelight on the floor Caught the red of beads upon your moccasins.

So it is, O Cun-ne-wa-bum, Who were wont to look on stars, That you sit for ever here, Like a wild lost note from far, From the days of ancient war And of towered stockade and guns In the Edmonton of seventy years ago.

In your buckskin and your beads (Feel the sudden wind from out the western hills) The tip-end of a swan's wing for your fan With a handle of porcupine quills.