Borders

Land creates a space
there are no invisible lines to cross
when the drought comes,
buffalo trek across the plains
feeling a skirmish, a shift in the landscape
the land is careless of one name,
breathing, dying, rainfall rising and falling
the rhythm larger than the living
claiming nothing,
accepting the flooded river years
the parched, scorched earth years.
Land is unmoving, free
there is a place,
An entitled habitat

There is no place for this child now
he hides her in a room during the day,
she is a shadow, two eyes behind a door
a recluse from childhood
unseen, frightened by daylight, by nightfall
she pulls away when offered a biscuit
there is no space where she belongs
walks,
She does not watch the sky for a thunderstorm
She has no natural rhythm of walking,
Or running down a street
She is foreign,

her borders have become smaller than a room
because someone, somewhere, years ago
put down a stake in the earth
with unnatural ceremony
and said,
this is mine.