Property in our ravenous economy
is dead matter.
It comes alive only
as someone puts a price on it.
It has no value unless and until
a human being owns it.
The same entity,
in her unassaulted, natural state,
throbs with worth and agency.
Self-determined,
she waits for no permission
or instruction
from the scheming
of other beings.
She is networked
with countless sentient neighbors.
All of them take
only what they need.
They give in equal measure,
knowing the exchange
sustains everyone.
There is no gotcha,
no one-up,
no gain at the expense of the other.
In fact, they don’t know other.
They feel only we.
We dominators push and shove
to divide what we deem
commodities,
be that copper, lithium, oil, trees, water.
We extract
and sell off as much
as we can
until the swindle is exposed,
even longer –
like cigarettes, oil, insurance.
By then, addiction has set in,
until we go cold turkey
to save ourselves,
our so-called property,
our Mother Earth.
