Accompanied by Noel Starblanket, one of the survivors, Jason Vaz visited the site of the residential school in Lebret.  

Noel gave a disturbing account of some of his experiences there and then led a prayer for the restless spirits of children who did not survive.  môsom is the Cree word for “grandfather” and refers to Noel. 

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teary-eyed môsom pointed

to the belfry of the derelict church:

that’s where the ghosts of the two boys

are sometimes seen, he said.

their white european shirts still autographed

with the grime of after-school sports,

still partly reddened with the dust of the

land that was swindled from them.

their crumpled shirts look like the rippled snow

they trudged through and nearly froze in to escape

the dungeons, where their wild innocence

was flogged and buggered and where they were

cooped up like game.

their khaki shorts look too big on their stick-thin,

ghost-brown legs. the toes of their naked feet

curl over the lip of the belfry

and their little hands hug the chilled, pale pillars

as if they are afraid of falling to their deaths.

their irises are tar-pits in which things get stuck.

sorrow lives under their epicanthic folds.

time has abandoned them to

the realm of ghouls and the genre of horror.

who will rescue them from the belfry?

who will re-unite them with the spirits of their parents,

who bead outraged gales

with cold tears and searching wails

that constantly

huff in the four directions of that haunted place?

and even though the rusty bell refuses to sound,

their parents’ spirits still pray for them,

who are lost because they were found.