Violence Is Us

Whether the metal in our hands
is the sword or the plough it is a blade.
It cuts and that is the point of it.

The earth accepts how we cut it
more readily than we accept
being sliced up by each other,
another act we are good at,
whilst wishing we had
more skill and detachment
from the act as we did it.

The earth accepts our blood,
the blood of the animals we kill

where we make extinct whole species,
and the poisons we brew up
that have toxic half lives
of thousands of years.

Meanwhile we refuse to recognise
how worthy of sacrifice we are.