Poetry Pause is the League of Canadian Poets’ daily poetry dispatch. Read “Lullaby for Olivier Le Jeune” by Vilma Blenman.

---

Lullaby for Olivier Le Jeune

By Vilma Blenman

(Olivier Le Jeune is the first recorded Black slave sold in Canada. He was six years old when he arrived in New France aboard a British ship. Coureur de bois literally means “runner of the woods” and refers to an independent 17th century fur trader in New France.)

I want to sing for him, sing something

his mother sang softly before she found him

missing, sing to warm him as he lies on

the stone floor by the door curled into

his clothes, asleep yet awake as he listens

for his master’s movements, so alert to serve,

so careful to please.

Google, play, “Motherless Child”

I want to serenade this child slave,

this beautiful boy brought here, bought

here then sold again, his masters changing

like seasons, like rain that becomes snow

that becomes sleet—so his names change.

“Olivier Le Jeune, do you remember

a name that made you turn and smile?”

Google, play, “Motherless Child”

I want to rock him, to wrap him in faux fur to

tell him the truth about the night terrors,

tell him he will not see motherland nor hear mother

tongue for this trade offers no returns or refunds,

but he may become a coureur de bois and see

bears roaming in the woods—free and fierce

and maybe he’ll taste maple sap in spring.

“It’s so sweet, Olivier.”

---

Copyright © Vilma Blenman

Vilma Blenman is a Jamaican Canadian poet, a psychotherapist, a retired teacher and a mother. Her story-poems are dispatches from the diaspora where she’s both observer and recorder on themes of memory, identity, Black history, culture and the healing beauty of landscapes. She is published in the Canadian anthology series, “Hot Apple Cider,” in Ekstasis and in Faith Today. Vilma lives and tends her garden in Pickering, Ontario. Visit her website at www.vilmablenman.com

---

Subscribe to Poetry Pause, or support Poetry Pause with a donation today!

---