Faded Photograph

My grandmother used to say we had some Cherokee blood

She recalled her great-grandmother

Sitting on the porch and smoking a corncob pipe

But that memory is old and worn

Trampled under the Swedish and the German and the English

It was the European roots to the family tree which were nourished

Those were the pictures we put in albums

The stories we told

The smallest fragment of European genealogy carefully preserved

Passed down as treasured heirlooms to the great-great grandchildren

While the photo of my Cherokee past was left out in the sun

On a forgotten window ledge in the attic

Faded now beyond recognition

Just the faint outline of an old woman in her rocker

Smoking a corncob pipe

No fry bread recipe, no stories, no native celebrations

To pass down to my children

The old lady herself had those things scrubbed from her conscience

Bleached

Like a stain to be removed from the European fabric of her husband’s family

The genocide of my Cherokee ancestry is nearly complete

Except for that picture

Of an old Cherokee woman

Sitting on a porch

Smoking a corncob pipe