The Glorious Past

Ah, how one pines for days
gone past, when a pioneer spirit
motivated our sturdy predecessors
to embark on long sea voyages to 
newly discovered lands, in escape
from the suffocating poverty and
class struggles of the old land so
grimly abandoned, high expectations
of diligent hard work in land clearing
a beacon of future prosperity. Free,
free at last in a new country beckoning
with its siren song of forests and lakes,
arable land and plentiful game -
and yes, as neighbours, indigenous
people who intimately knew the
land, knew winter cold and survival
techniques. Knew to follow the
wild herds in seasonal migration.
Knew the quality of botanical specimens
as medications, knew constant conflict
with competing tribes, knew they
would have to share access to fishing
and hunting, growing of crops, and
of course, exposure to dire seasonal
elements of climate, disease and
privation; above all, competition
for scarce resource entitlements. All, 
all this and more in the glorious past.