A JESUIT MISSIONARY IN THE AMERICAN MIDWEST, CIRCA 1670

People have been here

sixteen thousand years or more,

but coming from the east

you have crossed an ocean

and half of this continent

and now are seeing

what hadn't been alien

and strange to human eyes

for sixteen thousand years or more

but is for you.

You try to fit what you see

here beyond your charted world

into the frame of things you know,

and writing letters back to your superiors

mould the flood of experiences

into words they could understand,

words that would bring up in their minds

some fragment of the whole

your gaze fell on and you half understood.

And then they themselves set to work,

your letters on their desk,

writing a report for those

who might open a purse,

and now they distil from your words

a description that makes an adventure

with "Here Be Monsters"

on the audience's mental maps,

for monsters sell

and can send missionaries

to chart the confluences of great rivers

and glimpse an Eden

before its Armageddon.

o5.-06.09.2025