an old rubber band the postman dropped
disintegrates with time and age
meant to bind things together
nothing here to bind
all the letters lost

‘industrially darkened, reformed humans’

my passport with nine years left
rests beside the rubber band
nowhere to go, illegal to fly
paper clips, staples, a badge with a bee
contents of a draw, rarely opened

‘shapes of life, we are the breath part’

in the distance drum beats, chanting
ancestral voices, distant voices,
calling me to earth, to earth
any earth away from concrete
dust or grass,
mud or mountain,
hill to sky,
we must grow,
flower, rebirth

(two quoted lines from John Trudell)