Indians sure come In Handy

Poem by Simon Ortiz

There was a Greek
who was the city judge
In th late 1950's and early 60's
and he got in early
on the uranium boom business

The workers were trying to organize than,
you know.
a lot of them had come in,
miners from West Virginia, Montana,
Colorado, Oilfield workers
from Oklahoma, Texas, Louisiana.
The mines were pretty dangerous, wet,
water a foot deep most of the time,

and the companies said
there just wasn't enough timbers
to go around, there were cave-ins
The companies just couldn't mine fast enough
to keep up with the demand
for yellowcake the Atomic Energy Commission
was buying and stockpiling then

The mine superintendents
and the city judge,
who was also with the Chamber of Commerce,
were all good friends, of course.
They played golf at the Zuni Country Club

During that organizing time
and during that strike in 1961,
that jail full of Indians sure came in handy.
The jailer would even call in sick for you
and tell you which mines were hiring Indians.
The unions didn't have much of a chance
and Grants just kept on booming.

Simon Ortiz is fucking amazing. That is all. Perhaps I'll have more to say on the matter at another time.