Lament To Pontiac And Tecumseh

I am so sorry Chief Tecumseh

I could cry dear Pontiac;

what has happened to your 

loved ones in the swamp of Sanilac.

Our white ones came en masse 

with their axes and their saws;

how they raped the giant virgins

in the hills of Ogemaw.

How they poisoned all your

water at the flats of Saginaw.

I am so sorry Chief Tecumseh,

I could cry dear Pontiac.

Multitudes of bearded men

as kind as sweet Marquette,

could fill the lakes with tears

as we pitifully regret

that the squashes and the

pumpkins of the Potawotomi

lay fossling 'neaththe landfills we tainted

chemically.

I am so sorry Chief Tecumseh

I could cry dear Pontiac,

that the smog above the

valleys not the writing of

the smoke, or the lights

along the skyline not the

stars above the oaks. Andthe wolves of Osceola are

now playful fatted dogs and the

spirit of Menominee is

lost in acid fog.

Tittabawassee's fishes prove 

too putrefied to eat, as the 

garbage in Mecosta's woods

is dumped in vulgar heaps.

I am so sorry Chief Tecumseh,

I could cry dear Pontiac,

that the screamin wail of

engines of the oily machines,

in the forest of Huron

and the mighty Manistee,

is not the rumble of the

thunder or the eerie osprey's

scream as they mutilate

the land of lages the spirit

left pristine.

And if the coureur de bois

could see the slime beneath

the thaw, they 

would convulse within

their graves across the Keeweenaw.

I hope our gifted doctors

from the school at Washtenaw,

would voyage back

in time with canoes of 

pentathol,

to inoculate your

squaw and your little red 

papoose, against Caucasian

illnesses that choked them

like a noose.

I know our fluent Francais

priest who loved you 

as his own, admired you,

learned from you,

and had his soul

made whole

It seems that change does

rearrange the course of

human plans, like the glacier

slowly sculptured the

prehistoric lands.

Historically what happened

here from the Soo to

Lenawee, is the smothering

of your culture of

intriguing native ways,

that was strangled by the fingers

of our more assertive race;

you could not withstand 

our pressure, you would not

endure our pace.

I am so sorry Chief Tecumseh,

I could cry dear Pontiac.

--Pete Rheaume