In constructing their tipis, the Blackfoot started with a foundation of four base-poles, against which they then set a conical array of other poles; while the Cree used a foundation tripod, instead of quadripod.
When rain tries to injure me, or snow to slander,
I know that words' wounds heal, scab over;
with neither blood nor treaty, I become
an instant aboriginal, First National.
From my injured skin, I fashion shelter,
trim and sew it from an ancient template
to be wrapped around a cone of poles:
lodgepole pine, tamarack or poplar.
I set them by memory around an anchor,
a tri-, or quadri-pod of bark-stripped poles;
the woodland Cree use three, the prairie Blackfoot four.
You may impute my pain or ancestry
from whichever form I set the cone, but No.
Are three more stable? Four more grand?
One presents more fulcrum to the wind,
the other, funnel. What trees are near at hand?
One may be more supple, lighter, stronger,
easier to travois, carry more.
The number of my choice is like my voice;
I speak the way I spoke before I was born.
The ancestors of my memories are not
more intimate than this tight drum of dreams.
Each drop of rain reverberates three,
or four, times over: no matter; I am dry.
2009
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