We do not come from the same place.
Our worlds could not be more disparate,
could not be more alien;
even if we did not share a planet.
Even you, are alien to me.
You hair, your skin, your eyes,
your clothes, your speech,
your thoughts;
are bred in a place
far different
from the place that bore me.
Oh, we are aware of each other,
if dimly.
We are ghosts,
that each of us keeps to our periphery;
repulsive to behold,
too painful to acknowledge.
I am too busy,
running with wolves,
lean and hungry
to come to hail you as my brother.
Though I am told
we share common ancestors;
I do not know you,
or your fat land.
I do not know the world
of concrete structures
and glass towers
that you call home.
I do not have analogs
for technologies
and avarice
such as yours.
Here, all we know are harsh seasons;
where we survive on the wisdom
of our elders,
or we do not.
Here our words matter.
Here our stories are ourselves;
not ended in thirty minutes,
nor broken by commercials.
Our life song is sung uninterrupted
and unending.
I have been told,
that there has always been
a rift between our two villages
and that rift was drawn
by time and circumstance.
More of our people go to your world,
than come to ours,
but some seekers do come.
So is your world the future?
or is ours?
I suppose,
that I should seek to know you,
to extend a hand of friendship;
but I know
you would be too shamed to take it.
You see your world as superior.
You believe you debt is prosperity.
You think your job is not slavery.
You do not see your dependence
on technology as weakness,
so you believe
that somehow you have failed us;
but it is us who failed you.
How did we not see
that you were so entranced
by the intangible,
that you would forget how to live?
You are like a dog,
domesticated,
until the wolf pack howls
and then some part of you
remembers what it is to run,
to hunt,
to live.
Our two villages
sit on opposite banks
of the river of time,
neither one knowing
whether it is the past,
or the future,
but connected,
intertwined.
Our village
will always be open, brother.
Your past can be your future
once more.
HG -2016
