Modern Tribal Wisdom

We drew scenes from our trances on cave walls and signed them with our handprints

We worship the flickering images all produced to relieve of us of our money & reason

We thanked the creator and the animals for their sacrifices on our behalf

We build factory slaughterhouses and raise our meat without any mercy or grace

We tried to orient ourselves in our small part of this vast cosmos

Our current set of one true gods set us apart from the earth and all its creatures

We painted ourselves with ochre in patterns derived from mother nature

We encase ourselves within steel and plastic SUV cocoons while spewing toxins

We lived in caves with our dogs and guarded the fire with our lives

We are caught in their artificial cycle of electronically-induced consumption

We were small in number, often moving on, and the land restored itself behind us

We remain trapped in our own wastes by the millions in squalid, unplanned cities

We carved the salmon on the cedar and tried to find our own spirit creature

Our holidays have been disinfected by religion and co-opted by marketeers

Many of us died hunting the wooly mammoth and the giant cave bear

Injured former would-be athletes lay broken on soft couches, loudly gaining weight

We clashed with other tribes and mated with their women

We kill to demonstrate the moral superiority of our own loving & merciful god

We knew the cycles of the moon and the march of the seasons

Many among us never notice the weather until we’re forced to walk to our cars in the rain

In our potlatches we strived for status by giving away as much as we could

We pass by the homeless every day with our windows up and damn their lazy poverty

We carved totem poles that told the spirit stories of our clans

They make millions on our co-opted allegiance to empty corporate sports franchises

We solemnly left mother in the snow when she could walk no more

Grandma is drugged & abused by a variety of misfits in her warehouse nursing home

Each of us knew the history and all the legends of our ancestors and tribe

We dismiss that which happened over ten years ago as irrelevant & stupid ancient history

Our innate wastefulness was safely diluted by the fact of our small numbers

Now, we can despoil even the vast oceans and upset the very climate of the earth

We cataloged the plants for food, medicine and healing for a hundred thousand years

We pick cans off shelves by their pictures since we can’t quite read their labels

Life was hard and we knew by example that we must all die quite young

We spend billions trying hopelessly to restore a youth we wasted so long ago

We cuddled up and dreamed away the long Ice Age nights in communal shelters

We are chronically tired from working by our unwavering mechanical clocks

  

Our individual survival depended upon the success of our little group

Men sit drinking all alone in cheap, tiny rooms beneath dingy naked light bulbs

Specialized knowledge was accumulated and passed down in our arts and crafts

Disposable workers are worked long hours at degrading, low-paid tasks to profit others

Everything we tossed aside was native to the landscape, in any case

We spread our exotic toxins in far greater volumes than the earth can absorb

Leadership was recognized but assumed with humility and respect

Today’s managers scale the corporate ladder by ass kissing, sucking up and kicking down

The deformed, weak, sick and crippled quickly re-entered the spirit realm

We nurture the handicapped and rush to transform the human world in their image

We named the brilliant constellations and had stories about them all

Our lights have hidden the stars and our creation myth is old and stale

Our sturdy clothing came from things that we hunted, gathered and traded

Today we wear the identical products of massive mindless far-off wage slavery

As we wandered we often grew wet, cold, tired and very dirty

A few of us enjoy unlimited hot showers but so many lack clean drinking water & toilets

Our shamans were judged by the accuracy of their wisdom and knowledge

Advertising-controlled corporate media tells smarmy spin doctors exactly what to preach

We feasted on the sweetness of wild fruits and berries in their times

We gorge daily on sugar, salt and chemical flavorings fried up in fatty industrial oils

We forded at known safe places only when the water was not too high

We’ve channelized and sucked the diverted rivers dry after removing their sheltering trees

Everyone knew the stories of each and every member of our band

We live in a sea of strangers that tosses restlessly 24x7 just outside our locked doors

The legends we passed on required the imagination and memory of the listeners

Our entertainment is mindless, violent, sexual and created just to sell us things

The smart and the strong led the hunt and made the kills

Our generals plot from boardroom safety far away from the front lines

We marked the turning of the seasons with rites unique to our sacred places

Now time passes to the rhythm of artificial corporate retail holiday hype

We had no concept of owning any of the sacred lands we walked

Patriotic developers chop up vast parcels of that heritage to sell us little pieces of implanted dreams

Each of us could detail his lineage going back many, many generations

We cannot find on maps the places where our grandparents were supposedly born

Children grew strong in lives spent outside in the untouched & pristine surroundings

We raise our offspring indoors, drugged, chemically supplemented and nurtured electronically