All that you touch
you Change.
I dreamed a reminder
all a lie
little dependencies
often have things wrong with them
too bad
Mars is a rock
so what is God?
without anyone
scaring them
so much
attention to guns
unarmed people
get killed.
All that you Change
Changes you.
Intelligence is ongoing
or it does nothing
just before dark
I eavesdrop
we’ll have to seed ourselves
further from this
dying place
living world
might be easier
no more or less
we are all Godseed
expensive umbilical
to Earth.
The only lasting truth
is Change.
“Dogshit!”
food smelled
just
isn’t always safe
came running, guns in hand
what the hell
impossible impromptu funeral
Luke, chapter eighteen, verses
importunate widow
demands for justice
Earthlife fulfilling its purpose
its Destiny.
God
is Change.
We are Earthseed
affluent homeless
down to the freeway
just the pain
in the darkness
filed the knowledge away
for future use
first convert
God is neither good
nor evil,
good place to avoid
people’s pain and pleasure
no guarantees anywhere
we buried our dead
and bore fruit.
This piece (including the title) is composed solely out of phrases taken randomly from Octavia E. Butler’s “Parable of the Sower”, written in 1993. I got my copy of this book in 1999—worth every penny, and it’s now one of many other books by Butler that I own. Butler’s work is always prescient, visceral and eloquent, leaving readers with many strong emotions and resonant ideas—including the notion that “God is Change”.