as the metis learn to speak from the heart again

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   THE REPATRIATION OF MRS. IDA M. SCOFIELD

 

1.

 

 

(The Family Portrait: Portage la Prairie Manitoba c.1904‐1905)

 

 

 

It is all here unravelling

in black and white

the meaning of salvage, the last

sepia

‐toned remnant

of your gleaming white life,

the stiff likeness of yourself

appearing more the photographer’s prop,

the settee

holding the seized woman

whose hair is neatly piled,

pinned into place you waiting

to tear off the thick brocade dress

and throat pin, this presentation

of perfect ordinance

caught in tatters fraying apart

all in good black order.

It is all here, Ida:

you, the portrait in the portrait.

Knotted and carefully stitched,

nothing visible, nothing misplaced

except for the soft

‐shaping bones

inside, my grandfather’s

small body of exile, the bastard bones

of freedom freedom

from the tit

‐tat talk of town,

the man to your right

who is raging beneath his collar,

who is not my blood —

my blood name

that is not my grandfather’s name,

the name

given to our history.

And it is all here

in the eyes of the woman beside you,

grey and death

‐marching

her lips pocked with crucifixion

that I can see in black and white

the meaning of salvage,

this careful unbolting

of your life’s fabric,

although the drop behind you

is silk, such lovely silk

your eyes have cut past

the photographer’s vision

already gone away dear Ida,

from his composition.


          Gregory Scofield








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