At first
people couldn’t tell the difference.
The desert,
the woods, the seas — 
everywhere they looked they saw
themselves.

If they weren’t sure
who was who, they asked and
whatever another said they were
they accepted. It wasn’t hard
to know what to do after that.
They all got along as well
as rocks in a riverbed
or trees in a forest. This was
what we knew to be true:
every being was an extension
of all the others, as if the term
“the others” had anything to it
beyond spatial reference — they
were there, we were here, and this
was that.

It was only later
that trouble began.
There were some
who came along after
who were — different.
When they were asked
who was who
they seemed to know something
unacceptable, but there was no precedent
for unacceptable so 
people tried to accept
even if it meant 
distinguishing difference
they’d never seen. 

They said,
here is what is acceptable.
We call it
“dominion.”
We will store it
in this thing we call a church.
You need to come here
to be accepted.

Well, we will come to see, but
that in there is out here, we said.
Ask anyone — desert,
rain, forest, snow,
sea. Anyone will tell you
the same.

We aren’t listening,
they said.
Fingers in their ears;
somehow at the same time
axes and shovels
in their hands. No wonder
it is so hard to hear now
over all that dominion.