Dominion

Do you remember

What no one remembers

About the springs driven

Through newly-birthed ground

And the way birds flew in a vast

Capacity against the color blue

Even though there was no word for it?

Two humans aground in their aching,

Devoid of stopping, just that one

Second, to look at all

That had been created—

A secret garden where flesh

Felt the silkiness of dirt,

And the moist membranes

Of their olfactory nerves

Could still smell that newness,

A privilege they weren’t even aware

Was something worth noticing.

And after hearts were broken

And bodies clothed,

A whole line of years and time

And entitlement where dominion

Encroached on dictatorship

Spurned forth from the ground–

A sickly-seeded evil

We call progress,

Choking out the bloom

And flush of a newborn

World.

And what was lost

Wasn’t just those birds,

That blue, that dirt,

That newness,

But the way those two

Looked at each other

And loved so fearlessly

Because they didn’t even know

To fear themselves.