Assimilation
By Jim Cox

From the west side of crooked creek
You can see long stretches of meadowland
Past the narrow waterway, abruptly ending
At the steep ascent of hills covered in white pine

Along the banks mole tunnels make the soft
Soil lumpy, turtles rest beneath the tangled
Vines and foliage of dozens of plant species,
Some so rare they make you laugh

Early mornings when I walk the gravel road
Cut in for the campground near the creek
A great blue heron rises from her nest
Flying to the topmost branches of a hickory

She watches me go by and then returns
To the thicket grown dense on a shallow bend
Such is the joy of the morning: What grave
Trials can alter the peace of this land?

On the east side of the creek the chainsaws
Topple trees; the big machines’ backward beeps
Signal the change – fairways eight and nine
Will line that side right up to water’s edge

The new golf course by the Eastern Band of Cherokees
Will bring the fat rich tourists to the mountains
Empty their pockets as empty as their eyes
A right recompense given the tribe’s history

Now the Indians can truly say, “I know the cold
Hand that hides the anguish in your heart;
Because of that my eyes have lost their glimmer,
Their stars dying, my vision grows dimmer.

I have been these four hundred years and more
Taking in the white man’s way, I know the tongue,
The fear and arrogance that has gone beyond
The awareness of respect or redemption.”

Still, the moles are driven from their homes,
Two wounded ones that crawled out to cross
To safety lie dead at my feet, the turtle’s cracked back
Suffers the sun, the great blue heron gone.