Yellow moon over Texas

You spiral along our orbit
Nothing to do but watch.

What have you not seen of us here?

You've followed the lazy, momentous drift 
of our whole continent.
to north and west;

Watched the great inland sea
drive westward into worried mountains,
and raise up overall
to become part of
a sea of tall grass
north to south.

Were these virgin lands
when the nomads
flowed across the ice
half a million new moons ago?

Were there no more-forgotten people before them?

You saw the faint sparks of Folsom points 
being hammered,
heavy smears along the hillsides as buffalo
darkened the prairies
and hunters chased in their dust
for skins and meat and bones and tomorrows.

You stared silently
as we swept that second indigenous sea
into puddles of people 
and claimed the land like prairie grass, 
painting ourselves red in the process.

While you looked on,
we threw up dams
to capture scarce flow.
Water to the crowds.
Water to the crops.
Water to our pride.

Then came we to camp alongside those waters
and stare back up at you.