“The boy went apart and walked silently toward the top of a small hill. Here he seemed closer to the clouds that were racing across the sky, great white soft clouds that changed and separated, came together, and changed again. Some of the shapes the boy knew—a bear, huge and menacing, a chief with the feathers of an eagle reaching skyward from his head. Some he could not know, would never know, a helmed Spaniard on a horse with a flowing mane and tail, a covered wagon drawn by oxen, a man planting trees, the distorted shapes of machines, the tall outline of buildings reaching for the heavens…His heart was pounding with joy. He thought, this is our land. This will be our land forever and ever.
…
Soon all the land will be covered with dwellings and people, moderns with the ambitions of beavers will occupy every square foot. Few will remember the conquering Spaniards who found this country, except, perhaps, to read about them in books on library shelves or the archives in museums, old documents, old writings in diaries.
And the Indians who dreamed that this land would be their own through eternal years will be forgotten.”
--Margaret Was, “Genesis”
