A pocketful of seeds- A settler's poem

    I came to the desert with a pocket full of seeds

    To live in the house of my father's best dreams

    Promised to me before I was born

    Taken away because of my sins

    I came with a map painted on ancient hide

    To find the city of gold stripped of its wealth

    Its life giving springs poisoned or dry

    My father's house burned to the ground

    The first night I awoke with a knife at my throat

    My grandfather's bones held for ransom

    The gravestones are scattered and used to pave roads

    By an unlettered cousin thirsty for blood

    He came in the night to kill me and steal my inheritance

    A grave stands now where my brother lies buried

    But my dog of a cousin ran licking his wounds

    And now I must mourn as I sharpen my sword

    And yet I stay

    And build

    And plant my seeds

    And live in my father's dream

    Where my cousin knew only to take from the land

    Until it had no more left to give

    Making a desert that mirrored his soul

    The desert now blooms, my father

    The wheat is now ripe

    But I may not harvest

    My cousin has come

    He lives in the house my grandfather built

    The house where my father was born

    He claims to be the owner

    Yet my father's mark is still upon the door

    My grandfather bought a house

    Paying a ransom for a gift from his god

    The house where you live

    Counting my money

    Wiping your sword

    There you worship the man

    Whose children you kill

    Tell me, dear cousin

    How many times may a house be bought?

    How many deaths can be forgotten?

    Tell me, my cousin

    How came you upon your inheritance?

    Whose blood lies spilled upon the floor?

    Now strangers have come

    Selling swords and crying for peace

    I still remember how they burned my father

    When he could not fight back

    I came with my seeds to a desert

    Fleeing the fire

    And now I am labeled the oppressor

    In a stranger's court ruled by gold

    And the thief wears a suit and tie

                A smell of oil follows him wherever he goes

    You don't like my poem?

    Tell me, judge

    What rhymes with tie?

    Wait.

    You don't like this.

    Are my words too simple?

    Have I made history into a nursery rhyme?

    Is truth too complex to be understood

    By a man of simple belief in good and evil

    And justice based on proof

    And truth

    Or did you expect me to dig my own grave and lie down to die

    Yet again

    Pardon me for being uncultured

    And recalling past sins

    The truth isn't simple

        They tell me

    Justice must be served

        They say the time has come

    Now is the time for their kind of justice

    And I must stand silent in the place of the guilty

                  Accused of murder

                But if they speak the truth

                                Why am I the one burying my dead?                              

   

    My dead brother lies forgotten

    My murdered father lies in an unmarked grave

    The dead cannot ask for this new wave of justice

    And the killer claims an inheritance in this new style of court

    The land lay empty and neglected

        Yet you stake your claim from the beginning of time

        So tell me, my cousin

        Where are your trees?

    I came

    I built

    I made the desert bloom from the wells you poisoned

       So tell me, my cousin

       Why don't you go to feast in you brother's courtyard?

    Is that fear I see in your eyes?

    I cry for justice

        As I bury my dead

    You cry for peace

        As you wipe my blood from your blade

    And your words are accepted

    In the courts ruled by gold

    After all

    Peace sounds so much nicer than justice

    So your words must be true