Broken Bond

Site of an Indian encampment from centuries ago. Pond with ice is visible at right.

   Indians once lived here.
   The site was ideal. It adjoined a pond and a spring. Flat land overlooked a southern slope, ensuring more exposure to the sun during winter. They hunted, fished, grew crops, and traded with other bands. Life was good.
   Change came in the mid 1600's. An Englishman built a stockade in this field, right where I stood while taking the photo. Other colonists settled nearby.
   Indians besieged the stockade. They set fire to a hay wagon and rolled it toward the stockade. A rock got in the way. The Indians withdrew. Soon they were driven out for good.
   For me, this patch of countryside has been a Shangri-La. I've canoed on the pond. I've watched osprey's dive into the water and emerge with fish in their talons. With friends, I've lit campfires in the woods. I've walked the fields.
   Most of all, I've found solitude here. It's a refuge from my home elsewhere in town. Where I live, traffic is loud and housing is dense.
   Now my heart aches. Bulldozers are tearing up the earth. A housing development is being constructed. Not at this exact spot but close. Way too close.
   Remoteness has been compromised. The solitude will never be the same.
   In small measure, I feel the anguish those Indians endured as their bond with this land unraveled.

Animal tracks cut through snow near construction site.

Machinery digs up the land.