Homestead | Brad Anderson
My great-grandfather was a homesteader.
President Chester Arthur signed his deed
in eighteen eighty-three.
By that time he had lived there five years,
carved a small farm out of open prairie
and started a young family.
I am proud of how he moved from Denmark
to the Great Plains of the United States.
How with hard work and sweat
he made something out of nothing.
But it wasn’t nothing.
It was land taken from the Pawnee
either by war or broken treaty or outright lying.
A fact we conveniently misremember
or forget entirely.
Colonize is another name for conquest,
for taking something that was not given.
What makes us think we can colonize the stars?
Don’t we think the current residents might object?
Are we the invasive species that will destroy their ecosystem?
I have happy memories of my grandfather’s farm
not far from the original homestead.
Memories not complicated by the absence
of the Pawnee or the buffalo they hunted.
Memories of family gatherings,
of aunts, and uncles, cousins and food.
Grateful for our bounty, for our good fortune.
Unaware of the ghosts on the land around us,
what was lost for our gain,
what was forgotten…
for our happiness.
About the Author:
Brad Anderson started writing poetry as a means of survival during his late wife, LuAnne’s, journey through Alzheimer’s. Poetry helped him deal with her loss. Brad’s poetry has been published in Voices From The Plains, The Gilded Weathervane, and The Sugar House Review. His forthcoming chapbook, Water, Flour, Salt, and Time, from FarmGirl Press, will be released in July. Brad lives in Lincoln, Nebraska, and enjoys volunteering at Larksong Writers Place.
