Olof, the hale old Swede who cleared this hill,
Tossing an avalanche of fieldstones down the draw
When these tall cedar trees were bluegray berries,
Cut wagonloads of black birch to be milled
For wintergreen to oil less supple joints,
Pastured his dairy cows where we now play
At carpenter and mason after work,
Gathered snowy mounds of princess ppine
For Ingrid his wife to weave in yuletime weaths
And picking marigolds for marshy salads
Paced on glacier droppings over wetlands
He rightly guessed could be gouged to a pond,
Rode with us to scan a gravel bank
For gleanings of choice rainwashed building stones.
We asked the owner what she’d take for them.
She said she’d be obliged if we would come
And help ourselves to what were hard to move.
Rocks, being common, were as free as air.
Her mother was an Indian, said Olof
When we thanked her. Came from Signal Hill.
Her father was a white, her husband too
And only one of her six kids was Indian.
That one’s a teacher now, a real nice girl.
No Indians are left now on the reservation.
You have to be full blooded to live there.
We did not speak but thought, the town
Has finally become desegregated, then,
And Asiatic faces, warm brown skins
Have mingled with us northern Europeans.
You do not seem to mind and yet you sat
One recent evening scowling over coffee
Indignant at some legislative pup
Who dared propose that blacks should dwell near whites
If they could pay the price, dollars being green.
“They all smell bad,” you said, “and I’d not want
My daughters to get near them nor would I.
They’ll buy a house and fill it full of kith
And kin whose kids will overrun the neighborhood
And all the houses will be sold to them.”
We wonder, Olof, what you’d say if you
Were living now, twenty years later when
It begins to look as though the Reservation
Will soon outgrow the town. With government grants
The Indians have built new houses, purchased land,
Bought out a restaurant, developed a gravel mine,
And opened up a high stakes bingo hall.
Meanwhile, the blacks are still not numerous among us.
What is the difference whether the skins of neighbors
Are black or brown or white except for the guilt
That we once took their lands away from the Indians
And from their lands we took away the Africans.
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