In Waukesha
We don’t think about it very much anymore
but the ghosts of native americans might;
we walk, or alas, drive their ancient trading trails
paved many times over;
even our later inter-urban streetcar tracks
are now out of sight,
buried like their lightly-beaten paths
by time and poured concrete
and newcomers can’t get the gist of traveling downtown,
can’t figure these streets out because so many diagonals
cut through strangely, they say.
But it was all so simple then
for the woodland people
to follow their converging spoke-like paths
to the now downtown five points trading posts
No doubt
going through thick woods
from their outlying settlements,
intending to live forever in their homeland
upon which they trod so gently
Pioneers built great improvements
on their sacred burial grounds
and cannons stand in the library park
passing time’s additions, tentatively,
muddying the purer water of days
dim to us, unknown;
But not to the ghosts
who watched flowing streams
clear away many other silty stirrings
only for a moment hiding customary clarity
We are being watched by these patient spirits
these spector ‘savages’ who knew so much.
Their way to our downtown
is abiding.
