Double Irony

Working our way
up Round Mountain,
checking fence lines
and repairing the flume
that carries water
to the ranch,
we chanced upon an
empty coffee can –
institutional in size;
Maxwell House as I recall.

Old and rusting,
filled with stones
to hold its place upon a hillock.
“Injun grave,”
the ranch foreman
said with contempt,
in answer to the
unspoken question on my face.

“What was his name?”

“I don’t know, and I don’t care.”

How ironic his disrespect,
when a half-blood Osage
he was himself.
And we returned to work again,
went home that night
by another trail.

Fire since has swept
that mountain bare.
I have not been back
to check,
but fear that the
rusted coffee can
thus consumed
has left no marker for that grave.

So, one more Achomawi
rests
nameless and forgotten -
and this not far
from sweat-lodge
and inter-tribal marketplace
unearthed by archaeologists.


James Gagiikwe © 2008