I didn’t notice
Until almost too late
That the times were a-changing
At a very fast rate
Time crumbles their mortar
Context shifts their efficacy
Or a new technology
Renders them impotent
An image a white man made
Which earned white man’s awards
In a museum of white man ways
A monument to a way that was
Thus they shone
Close to bone
A feat not
Taken lightly
Until
The rain
Did fail
And so I forfeit
The beauty
And insight
I will never know
They script the creeds
Direct the deeds
They lead a people
To their fate
Or is it ‘fate’ created?
Steinbeck dedicated chapter twelve of Grapes to Route 66, the road of flight for dust bowl refugees seeking the promise of something better in California. The chapter traces Route 66, its terrain, its places, its challenges, the experiences of its desperate travellers, from the Joad family home in Oklahoma all the way to Los Angeles.
“My original convictions upon this subject have been confirmed by the course of events for several years, and experience is every day adding to their strength. That those tribes can not exist surrounded by our settlements and in continual contact with our citizens is certain. They have neither the intelligence, the industry, the moral habits, nor the desire of improvement which are essential to any favorable change in their condition. Established in the midst of another and a superior race, and without appreciating the causes of their inferiority or seeking to control them, they must necessarily yield to the force of circumstances and ere long disappear.”
~ Andrew Jackson
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