The Age of the Earth
(“Don’t pay people back with evil for the
evil they do to you. Focus your thoughts on those things that are considered
noble.” Romans 12:17)
That was a rainbow you saw hiding
behind the backside of the barn. Those were
bended rays
that moved around the boulders in the way.
The barn, red slat siding, tilting toward the river,
had stood straight as time when the neighbors first
raised it.
The boulder, worn with age, hid eons and eons of
abrasion inside. A golden salamander had sunned
upon the edges that the waters eroded. A boy
and
a girl
had jumped from its gray table-top
laughing into the river.
That was before the borders were drawn,
that was before English was the only acceptable language.
That was before the fences were erected,
that was before feet were inspected for where they
had come from.
Stay put. Stay out. Turn around. Go back.
Pay here. Stay there. Hit the ground. Flashback.
Churches grew on ground next to sweat lodges.
God gave the white man firearms,
the native only had axes.
It was clear whose right it was to
occupy the dirt. Bullets were the proof,
power was the religion that turned moccasins
to boots.
Let us keep our stories straight, let us rehearse
the communal memory so
rocks and barns and sands and stones
remind us of our atonal ways of composing our songs.
The same sun that dried the buffalo hides
burns the skin of children too long playing on the shore.
The same atoms that began eons and eons ago
build the hearts and lungs and feet and hands
of each of us,
now, and ever shall be.
When I shake your hand, I shake the molecules of
both our distant ancestors and the fires they built to
keep themselves warm.
