In the empty garden before dawn.
On the verge of all the changes
we never seem to make
in the wake of fossil-burning devastation.
Somewhere in the shadow
of a knowledge long forgotten
in the vaporous dream of being.
Before eros became pathos.
Before Caine picked up the stone.
Before we joined him
in the great caress of hate,
the dopamine grin of enforced superiority.
Before the human invention of hypocrisy.
Before grunts became language,
became doctrine, dealing death.
Before gun and grift and gadget.
Before technology swallowed us whole.
Before the rise and fall of our best intentions.
Before fear bested us, left us empty and cold
and ready for the taking. Before the sucker punch
of capitalism enslaved the sleepy masses,
flag-tied, tongue-tied and blue-light sated.
Before the next atrocity,
and the next. Before the numbness,
blind-deaf-dumbness of American life.
Now. Before the last ice melts,
before the next ammunition belt is emptied
at the school, in the synagogue.
Here, standing on desecrated soil,
the best in us waking, listening
to the Earth-voice rising,
wonder and wisdom shining all around
at the rebirth of everything in us
worth saving. Today,
waking in the aftermath of healing,
lightened and empowered, let us break
the chains of culture, give back
what was never ours to take.
.
Alfred Fournier
.