The Indians Have Gone

It is late in the evening and I am reading the prose of an American Indian writer. He writes of seeing a reflection of the moon in water that has pooled in the bedrock mortar holes where the earliest California Indians ground their acorns with circular grinding stones. I immediately envy that man, standing in that singularly wonderful place. There are no Indians where people in my city stand, crossing busy streets and darting through single-minded traffic. Oh, there may have been Indians a very long time ago, longer than I know anything about. And it could be that they did grind acorns in some mortar hole with circular grinding stones, but the progress of time has long since buried their grinding places with asphalt where cars now grind pot holes that gather the rain and reflect the moon. What would the Indians think if they could see those places where they once stood and gazed upon that moon, or knelt and ground acorns? They would say in their way as I say in mine; oh, God.