How We Got Here
A Poem by Will Falk
From Wayfarer Magazine, Issue 42»
You were never meant to carry the weight of the world, but I bet you can carry more than you currently are. The gaze of that orphaned Sumatran orangutan, her tiny toes clinging to the last tree the machines didn’t eat, suggests it doesn’t really matter if you can or can’t. You must. Being the change you wish to see in the world never worked for those peoples who never really needed to change but who were still in the way after pox painted their skin red and the price of scalps rose to five dollars a bloody head. Those wandering ghosts, missing half their hair, insist that change is not to be until it is made. You may have been taught to value a kitten or a puppy more than a calf or a piglet but beetles have babies, too, streams dream of one day reaching the ocean like their river mothers, and soil is sick of being treated like dirt. You should not doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. It’s just that the ones who have have a lot more money and a lot more weapons than you. Termites, fueling their bodies by feeding on wood, until the whole house collapses prove that the master’s tools can indeed dismantle the master’s house. But anyone who has ever actually picked up a chainsaw knows that the only possession the saw respects is the one who pulls the trigger. And, of course, violence never works said no conqueror ever. And that little orangutan, those scalped ghosts, and millions of beetle mothers mourning their babies demand to know: if it wasn’t for violence, how did we get here?
Will Falk (he/him) is a biophilic activist, author, and attorney. The natural world speaks and poetry is how Will listens. His law practice is devoted to helping Native American communities protect their sacred sites and cultural resources. He is the author of How Dams Fall and When I Set the Sweetgrass Down. willfalk.org.