Boarding schools

A reluctance to be humane
And a refusal to care
Indisposed and grudging
Totally unaware
Native children matter
They are people of the earth
They live where they found
Themselves
And give back all their worth

These boarding schools
Of north dakota and south dakota
They were prisons
Never schools
No child should have ever have
Gone to stay
Not allowed to speak their tongue
The only one they knew
Made to just speak English
Thats what people do

You can feel the dreadful sadness
The non-acceptance he
Was punished just for speaking
His language it was Cree
Its what his mother taught him
How can they expect
A child to speak another language
A difficult prospect

Punished put in hand cuffs
That tore into his wrist
They have to have their hair cut off
And ofcourse desist
In ever speaking cree at school
Until ofcourse they would
Forget their mother tongue of course
And how could that be good

Constantly hit about the head
And always made to wear
A white dunce hat
So others could treat him
So unfair
He didnt speak queens english
And couldnt understand
Why then he should be beaten
Across his head and hand

His eyes packed full with tears
A rolling
Gently down his cheeks
“Old man eagle” that his cree name
And clearly all he seeks
Now is to wonder why they
Made him kneel down by the door
So everyone who came in
Could laugh at him for sure

He prays that no one else
Should ever have to undergo
Through all this as he had done
and, as he did grow
He just could not get rid of
The upset in his heart
Abuse and torture
All those years
That those teachers did impart

Their wickedness was evident
But only now that we
Can see how this man suffered
At their hands, their infamy
Their disservice to the people
Creating misery
That would never leave a person
For an eternity

Such iniquitous behaviour
From teachers put in charge
Of native children honestly
Clearly in their little lives
This punishment ruled large
Many died and were buried
In the school graveyard where
Innocent angels ended up
And nobody did care

Imagine for a moment
One of those children who
Clearly felt abandoned
And admonished too
Constantly was told off
And beaten every day
If this was life then culturally
It wouldnt have been the way

Native children wanted to live
The ravages of time
With evil all around them
How essentially could they climb
Out of this grime and ugliness
How could they ever dream
When life was one big nightmare
Honestly one long scream

To watch this man now old and grey
Cry out his heart
What can we say
Of the white man in authority
Clearly all this subjugation
And terrible inflexibility
Was not lost on the gentle heart
Broken and beside itself
Crying sobbing from the start

Oppressed and clearly made to feel
Subservient and inferior
Imprisoned in the boarding school
Somewhere in the interior
Treated like dirt and trampled down
Frightened to even speak
For fear of getting an awful whack
Right across his cheek

The suffering and heartache
The painfulness was there
Bursting out of all his pores
Prostration and despair
Utter desolation
A wretchedness as well
Peering into this old mans face
You could feel his living hell.