Trading Infinity
(Alt: Nobody Owns the Land)
(Alt: Nobody Owns the Land)
This timeless land
of half-lives, forever
splitting through infinity
is emptiness playing at structure
relationship playing at form
each bond a bond
in passing
as real and absolute
as nothing, or anything,
at all.
And us, prepubescent bipedals,
caught in our feverish dream
of buying and selling
Earth and land,
trading Infinity,
with inky claims
on sheets of pulp
as real and absolute
as nothing, or anything,
at all.
I’ve caught the blackness
in between the stars
looking down and laughing
when I’ve stepped out
into its night
to take a leak--
and I’ve seen a pebble,
millions of years old,
smirking as it decomposed
in each second, knowing
itself to be as impermanent
as me and everything
else before my eyes
and under my feet.
of half-lives, forever
splitting through infinity
is emptiness playing at structure
relationship playing at form
each bond a bond
in passing
as real and absolute
as nothing, or anything,
at all.
And us, prepubescent bipedals,
caught in our feverish dream
of buying and selling
Earth and land,
trading Infinity,
with inky claims
on sheets of pulp
as real and absolute
as nothing, or anything,
at all.
I’ve caught the blackness
in between the stars
looking down and laughing
when I’ve stepped out
into its night
to take a leak--
and I’ve seen a pebble,
millions of years old,
smirking as it decomposed
in each second, knowing
itself to be as impermanent
as me and everything
else before my eyes
and under my feet.
“The first man who, having enclosed a piece of ground, bethought himself of saying, 'This is mine,' and found people simple enough to believe him, was the real founder of civil society. From how many crimes, wars and murders, from how many horrors and misfortunes might not any one have saved mankind, by pulling up the stakes, or filling up the ditch, and crying to his fellows, 'Beware of listening to this impostor; you are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the earth belong to us all, and the earth itself to nobody.'”
― Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on the Origin of Inequality
"Nobody Owns The Land" Decal on Etsy.
