This poem was inspired by the story of young John Rowand (1787 - 1854), later chief factor of Fort Edmonton. When out riding by himself he fell and broke his leg. Louise, a single parent Cree woman who camped near the fort, saw his horse return riderless and rode out to find him. She helped him back to the fort, nursed him, and they married.
The wind is a widow, hunting,
loping through September grasses
aching to recover April's kisses,
mellow with consent of May
and constancy of June.
She runs through the aspens,
runs through the pines,
flailing the leaves with her hair,
scoring her skin with pine-needle lines.
She topples the rider
galloping high from coulee to hill
fleeing the lips that roll on his ear,
the fingers that rifle his hair.
He falls but his leg will not lift him.
No one to hear him,
none to give aid
but the widowed wind,
who is hunting.
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