THE UNINVITED SETTLER MAKES HER PRETTY REGRETS
Somewhere along the way we forgot how
Things work, how birds fly over, how order
Catches from wing to wing. Nature allows
Almost anything, except a border.
Somewhere along the way we got it wrong.
Mistook the land for a claimable thing,
Drew lines, built walls, told tales of who belongs,
As if the earth weren’t one great belonging.
Longing for an order clean as coffins,
We killed, we caged, we maimed; named our feast days
After butchers. Thought same meant safe. Often
A voice would catch from ear to ear, and say,
“Of home you’ve made a prison.” We couldn’t hear.
For all we knew of life was how to fear.
Corinna Schulenburg 