The Primitive

 The Primitive

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I remember the world before it had a name,

Before the green was broken by the plow,

When fire was a wonder, not a weapon,

And the sky was all the ceiling we’d allow.

->~<-

We tracked the deer by heartbeat through the thicket,

We thanked the river for the life it gave,

We had no locks to keep out one another,

And no one dug a brother for a grave.

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No name was carved upon my skin,

No walls divided me from you,

No lies were dressed as golden words,

No masks hid what was true.

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A sharp stone became my first tool,

A flame became my guiding light,

I fought the cold, I faced the dark,

And survived another night.

->~<-

Then came the age of iron and of angles,

When men began to measure out the mud,

To call a mountain "mine" and fence the valley,

And sign the deed in ink, and then in blood.

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We traded in the starlight for the lantern,

We traded in the silence for the gear,

We built our towers higher than the redwoods,

And paved the earth to smother out our fear.

->~<-

Now look at what your "wisdom" has delivered:

A clever world that suffocates its own.

You conquer stars, but cannot love your neighbor;

You sit upon a high and frozen throne.

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You call me savage from your wall of concrete,

Because I bled for what I had to eat-

Yet you will starve the children of the future

To buy the gold you scatter at your feet.

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Without a mind of wisdom, I fought to survive,

I hunted, I killed, I protected my own,

My hands were stained by the laws of the wild,

Yet love was the seed that my heart had known.

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But you, with your knowledge and pride as your crown,

Without culture, without compassion, you fall,

You kill the innocent for reasons unknown,

And I, the primitive, am ashamed of you all.

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I am the root beneath your paved-over cities,

I am the wind you stifle with your smoke,

I am the ancient truth you tried to bury,

Before the simple bond of nature broke.

->~<-

Go strip away your titles and your armor,

Go wash the modern madness from your eyes;

The primitive you mock is still within you-

The only part of you that never dies.