| 2600 | est. 1909

Rants into Poetry

Photo Credit: David Rollyn

How many deaths can
A culture die before it
Is truly dead? How
Much does a culture cost? Is
It sold by its weight in gold?

If gold is the price
The people have already
Paid. Cattle and gold
And the theft of the women
Was the price of the first death

Sold to strange white men
The feasting and rituals stopped
And the old gods and
The old ways gave way to their
Progress and Civility

Mountains desolate
Hollowed out and scraped empty
Forests toppled down
All the wildlife driven out
Old nobles reduced to wage

A century passed
Somehow, culture persisted
The last trees now choke
By the products given by
Progress and Civility

But what did survive?
A shallow, token culture
Stripped of all meaning
Sold to sell more of itself
A second death imminent