Divided only by stories and space,
Spread across oceans,
We burn to belong.

loyalty takes tributaries,
Flowing water known by many names
The direction, the destination the same,
We babble like brooks about the better ones, the one way.

Monuments to freedom tilt across borders,
Still we stand and throw obligations at each other
As if handling hot stones,
No one owning where they’ve come from.

As long as we are terrified of each other’s thoughts and hands,
We’ll search for differences to divide us.
But you are not separate, only, from a different tree,
And like a leaf, I have fallen with you.

Child, the way has not been clear,
But change aches to be made.
It whispers under every breath,
The first and the last, and those inbetween.

No wonder we hold and no wonder we long,
No wonder we gather our own,
To stall the hunger for each other.

Knotted together is the good for us,
And the good for the world.
Put your hand down. Covering your eyes is not allowed.
Neither is staring. All has its balance.

So much of our tapestry of meaning is at stake,
Its patterns woven along many dimentions,
You glimpse it just beyond these nested, sacred shelters
Where like so many birds, one day every soul will soar, fly free.