They came
First from Spain
Then from everywhere
with one thing on their minds
They saw gold in mica-flecked beige mud
in waving tall grasses
in placid expanses of yellow blooms
in free running streams.
Wherever they found it they knew there had to be more
and so doomed the place to endless rape
In this way they explored and mapped two continents
and reduced the magical new world to a chart,
a grid of exploits,
of dead animals and depleted holes.
Many tried to tell them, that the gold was apricots,
the limpid sunlight,
the poppies,
the glinting rivers.
But they mistook the lifeless metal for power,
and would not listen.
They mauled and murdered the land without mercy and gained very little,
And only gained at all by ignoring the damage they did and refusing to pay.
I myself have felt the pull, the power of finely wrought gold, when I saw Tutankhamen's treasures.
But then I walked outside, and saw dragonflies and moths, oaks and maples, clouds in sunset,
and was instantly cured of obsession with inert wealth.
I do not know what makes me so different from my fellow humans,
who can forget the glory of joy, of love,
of belonging to a place engineered to suit us.
We seek shelter from the same rain,
breathe the same molecules of air,
falter and hesitate, succeed and fail
in the disinterested light of the same sustaining star.
Yet some must slaughter and devastate for the sake of a shining mirage
which will not extend their finite lives by a second.
I wish I knew why
I wish I could help
But I am just another errant child here
in a vast and aging universe
made not for me but before me,
without my consent and beyond my understanding.
