The Man From Washington

The end came easy for most of us.

Packed away in our crude beginnings

in some far corner of a flat world,

we didn't expect much more than firewood and buffalo robes

to keep us warm. The man came down,

a slouching dwarf with rainwater eyes,

and spoke to us. He promised

that life would go on as usual,

that treaties would be signed, and everyone -

man, woman and child - would be inoculated

against a world in which we had no part,

a world of money, promise and disease.