This is My Tribe

Once
Long ago
After many seasons of drought and gold
I came to know and man unlike any other
A leader
A pastor
A king
He came to my land clad in linens of silk
And had the sent of sweet buttermilk
But it was the look within his eyes that so captivated
And astonished me so
Wisdom…of ages past
Seemed to radiate from him every step
That he took through the ferns and the bones that littered
This frozen and shocked land

He eyed me quickly
Suspiciously it seems
As if he did not like the way my eyes did gleam
Or my hair did curl
Or my skin did black
And deep down I did feel in fact
Inferior
As I looked around
At all the stink that lingered on the ground
And all those torn and twisted forms
Being lifted by the chance breeze
He turned his head away from me
And turned his attention to our tribal queen
And smiled oh so persistently
As he looked upon her crown

And the ornaments of aureate quality
He seemed to be entranced by these
And though he spent his time promising
I did not miss his lust
Others of my tribe
They did not see
To blind by hunger
And calamity
To see through all that he said of thee
This country he spoke of so well
I myself was not fooled
And I knew the truth of this coming rule
And although I was not a fool
Alone I could not resist
To weak to do anything else but preach
I tried my chance and began to speak
But they soon struck the words out of me
These people of my tribe

So one by one they got on the boat
Leaving me behind
These cleaver folk
I was left to die
As they left to live
As strangers in a new land
And so I watched
The ship sail away
Carried upon these crashing waves
That sipped sumptuously on the battered beach
From which once I was given life

And so I sit all by myself
My only company the sand and skulls
Wondering not what happened to them all
For this is my tribe now