I stand where Jane, Rachel and Indian women once stood,
The mountains, sky, earth and streams, are the same they saw,
 and did they dream as I dream?  Did they dreams of some  coming woman? A me?

Jane, pioneer woman, eking out a life in a cabin by the stream,
Conceiving, Carrying and Bearing her eighteen children
On this same spot.  Did she dream as I dream?  Of me?

Or was she numbed by the cruel days and nights
Of ‘making do’ with ne’er a moment to stop and just be woman?
Did she dream as I dream? Wonder?  About some future woman?

And that sweet, child-bride Rachel, alone in a family of men.
The mountains, sky, earth and stream the same, but  . . .
Did she dream as I dream? And wonder of someday wives for her sons? 

I see countless Indian women, standing where I now stand,
Seeing the same mountains, sky,  earth and stream, and ask
Did they dream?  Did they dream and wonder?  Of other women?

Now, I stand where other women have stood before me,
Circled by the same mountains, sky, earth and stream,
And I, too, dream and wonder . . . but I dream of them.  Jane, Rachel, Indians.

The eternal mountains, sky, earth and streams are the same, but
I see a highway at my door, golf course, not pasture, Ipod in every hand.
I wonder and dream . . . of the peace and quiet no longer here.

Bewildered, do the mountains, sky, earth and stream ever wonder, too?

Ethel Bradford
March 8, 2015