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.

When I wake before sunrise
and look out through the blinds
to see the cardinal on the fence
across the street and think of
how sweet it would be
for the red I feel in me
to be visible like that? I imagine
what it would be like to be secure
in flaunting that vibrance.

I try to reimagine my life
from beginning to now as crimson,
as fire, my blood spilling out
so swiftly no one could mistake me
for plain brown or blush-tinged white
no matter how far away they were.

The cardinal as ever 
does not stay long but instead
of flying off he comes to sit
atop the feeder here as if to say:
the red in you is yours,
is right here — if not quite 
within reach it is yours to attract
and sustain. You can
fly a red flight as I do;
dipping and rising and landing
where you want. 

I try to reimagine my life till now
as the start of a long cardinal’s flight —
catching a glimpse of red
as it dips and rises, dips
and rises; not seeing from here
where it will land, but confident
that if I pay attention, I will eventually
see that and be at peace. 

A lifetime of living among those
who claim ownership of stolen goods
as a matter of birthright
has left me confused.

What part of me ought to sympathize
with those so terrified of losing
that which is not theirs
that they would kill to protect such falsehood?

Should I feel sorry for them
in their delusions and offer sympathy,
or retch with disgust and run
in an attempt to keep their madness at bay?

Half of me tugs one way.
Half of me, the other. 
Torn to pieces and scattered;
all the pieces remain my own. 

They show us pictures of space
to remind us that our problems
amount to nothing at all
even as the problems are killing us.

They show us pictures of space 
to make us wonder
at how far we could go
if we can exist long enough.

They show us pictures of the depth of space
as if no painted rocks or shamans 
haven’t been clear about that
for tens of thousands of years. 

They show us pictures of space
to reassure us of how much is left to colonize.