Dreams Of The Past: An Explication of Louise Erdrich's Poem "Indian Boarding School: The Runaways"

1.Home's the place we head for in our sleep. 2. Boxcars stumbling north in dreams 3. don't wait for us. We catch them on the run. 4. The rails, old lacerations that we love, 5. shoot parallel across the face and break 6. just under Turtle Mountains. Riding scars 7. you can't get lost. Home is the place they cross. 8. The lame guard strikes a match and makes the dark 9. less tolerant. We watch through cracks in boards 10. as the land …showed first 75 words of 1532 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1532 total…the previous. The first describes the children's escape and journey, the second recounts there capture and return, and the third speaks of punishments and reflections of the runaways. Although this is a poem of past adventures, it speaks of dreams and reads like a short story. Work Cited Erdrich, Louise. "Indian Boarding School: The Runaways." Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. 8th ed. Eds. X.J.Kennedy, Dana Gioia. New York: Longman, 2002. 1192-93.