I call this area THE GREENHOUSE.
There's no place else to plant this stuff!
Garden row 10

ON POLITICAL CORRECTNESS

The crippling effect has already set in.
You didn't even see it coming.
Our Freedom of Speech is dying
a tortuous death.

                   5 Jan 1994



         This next one was written for Tecumseh, the Shawnee Warrior. After the whites refused to live in peace, Tecumseh spent his life and honor trying to get the Native People of North America to band together and dispel the whites from what is now 'my' country. Had he succeeded, this country would belong to the Red Man, not the White Man. Because the various Indian nations chose not to back him, but to relinquish the land, and allow themselves to be pushed further west, I believe the Native American has less a complaint against "White Government" than against his own ancestors. I have undying admiration for this man whose memory now seems to be shunned by, and rarely spoken of by the Native American Nations.

PANTHER PASSING ACROSS
(Translation of Tecumseh's name; he was named for a shooting star, seen by his father on the night he was born .)

The red man, or
whatever he wishes to be called
does not talk about Tecumseh.
Tecumseh would be better forgotten,
great warrior that he was.

The red man should
not like to be called Native American.
"American" is a white man's term,
and would not have been acceptable
to Tecumseh, the Shawnee

The red man, as
I call what used to be called "Indian"
(which is also a white man's term),
are a very bitter people these days
because their forefathers forsook Tecumseh.

The red man, as
he used to call himself
would not join Tecumseh
in united battle against white settlers
and so and so they lost hold of the land.

The red man, or
whatever he wishes to be called
will not like this poem.
They give OTHER reasons
for bitterness. Forget Tecumseh.

                   10 May 1994             Copyright Yvette L Maurey

THE LEAST OF MY BROTHERS

His old shoes are so worn
he can't walk very far
from the shelter without stopping
because his feet hurt.
So he stops
every couple of blocks
and remembers a time when he got new shoes
as a child.
His beard and hair
could use not only a trim
but a shampoo as well, and so could his hat.
He walks around all day
with no place to go
and if he returns too late
to the shelter, has no place to sleep.
The day I met him
I was on my way back to the office after lunch.
I had spent all my money
but gave him my leftover fries
which I was taking home
to my dog
who no doubt
has a better life.       1990