Run Again At Last
Where are the ones who remember?
Where are those who once knew?
We were honored, loved, and respected,
Treasured and valued by you.
Where are the ones who could tell you?
We were partners not that long ago.
Who could have even imagined?
Where did your Love for us go?
Where are the ones who remember?
When you rode us to places unnamed.
When you first saw the rivers and drank from their flow.
When you named the Nahanni, Mt Kidd, and the Bow.
When you harnessed our might to break your hard ground.
And we worked at your side until harvest came round.
Set us free – Let us go.
Please don’t let our Children know,
These mud-soaked pens, confining crates,
The deadening blow behind that gate.
Another plane that smells like fear,
The terrible ringing in our ear.
Let it all be in our past,
Let us run …. let us run again at last.
Where are the ones who remember?
Where are the ones who once knew?
We helped fell your trees and pulled them through bogs.
We watched while you stripped them and shaped them to logs.
Gave our strength and our might for your houses and barns.
We shared in your dreams as you fashioned your farms.
Where are the ones who remember?
Where are the ones who recall?
Through fighting, through war and surrender,
We carried your men through it all.
Pulled guns, covered wagons and cannons,
From sunrise and all through the night
Through smoke, sweat and blood of the battle.
Our mothers and fathers were part of your fight.
And now, in the hour of our darkness,
We’re looking around for your eyes.
Where are you who remember?
What’s true from this greed and those lies.
Where have you gone silent partner?
We call through the night for your ear.
Please open your eyes, your hearts, and your minds,
To the nightmare that’s meeting us here.
Don’t let us meet this awful fate from disconnected hands.
Don’t let them take our dignity to die on foreign lands.
Set us free – Let us go.
Please don’t let our Children know,
These mud-soaked pens, confining crates,
The deadening blow behind that gate.
Another plane that smells like fear,
The terrible ringing in our ear.
Let it all be in our past,
Let us run …. let us run again at last.
Written by Dr. Shannon Zaychuck
