by Ken Sehested
We are indeed strangers; but not foreigners.
This “world” is not our home; but this earth is.
We are not drifters: directionless, detached, disaffected,
suffering neither loves nor longings,
risking no hopes, claimed by no promises.
We are in fact squatters,
occupying the land and waters
whose only trustworthy deed challenges every indenturing creed,
every realty’s lien which privileges the few at the expense of the many.
We seek no flight to another terrain
for it is this very domain—
every meadow’s shadow, every peak’s brow,
every river’s careen, every furrow’s plough—
which asserts heaven’s riposte to hades’ advance.
“Thy will . . . on earth.”
Pacem, pacem, pacem in terris.