YORUBA PYGMIES

Their lives are so interwoven with the ecosystem
The Pygmies are as much a part of it as the wildlife
The forests, the fish in the streams.
They're fauna eating flora,
Hunting antelope, elephants, climbing up the trees
For plantains, breadfruit, honey, nuts, and leaves.

The flora, the fauna, the Yoruba, the Pygmies
Toltec, Zapotec, Aztec, aborigines
Erie, Zuni, Hopi, Potawatomi,
Emu, eland, bongo, hippopotami
Echoing the ecosystem, echoing the ecosystem,
Interwoven, interwinding
Weaving into, intertwining
What about you, what about me
Living in Iowa, Milwaukee, Kankakee,
Mexico, Peshtigo, Chicago, Tennessee,
Afghanistan, Pakistan, Istanbul, and Cairo,
England, Cincinnati, and Rio de Janeiro.

Echoing the ecosystem, echoing the ecosystem,
He danced on the rocks like a lizard, like a lizard,
Absorbing the warmth through his feet.
He drew from the rocks like a lizard, like a lizard,
The energy beneath.
He drew from the force of the sea, of the sea,
Floating on the waves
Like seaweed, like seaweed,
He drew from the force of the sea, like seaweed
Sweeping shoreward, sweeping seaward.

How much is a man like a lizard, like a lizard
Absorbing from the earth beneath?
How much is he like seaweed, like seaweed,
Sweeping shoreward, sweeping seaward?
How much is he like seaweed
Drifting till he's stranded,
Drifting till he's stranded?

Their minds are so interwoven with the ecosystem
That they are as much a part of it as the mountains,
The deserts, the sky, and the sea.
Iraqi, Irani, Kuwaiti, Omani,
Tibetans, Tunisians, the Shiites, the Grecians
The Moslems, the Christians, the Romans, Egyptians,
The Jews and the Druse, the nuns and the Huns.
The lamas, the swamis, the mullahs, the muftis,
The monks and the imams, the Buddhas, the Brahmans
The gurus, the priors, the bhikkus, the friars,
The rabbis, the priests, the deacons, the sheiks

Interwoven, interweaving
Part of the desert, the sky, the sea,
What about you, what about me,
What about modern society?
Robots and cyclotrons
Isotopes and silicons
Saccharin and sucaryl
The car, TV, the bomb, the pill
SST's and submarines
Triticali, closet queens
Nuclear plants and laser beams
Aerosols and football teams
High-heeled shoes, unleaded gas,
United press, The Times, and Tass
Spermicides, artificial turfs,
DDT, and test-tube births,
Acrylics, elastics, condos, and plastics,
Valium, Styrofoam
Designer jeans, Fuller's dome
Cassettes, tape decks, car wrecks, stereo,
The Pygmies live the way they did
three thousand years ago.

The Yoruba, the Pygmies, Kwakiutl, aborigines
Erie, Zuni, Hopi, Potawatomi,
Maori, Masai, samurai, Menomonee,
Echoing the ecosystem, echoing the ecosystem
Interwoven, interweaving
Weaving into, intertwining
What about you, what about me
Staring out a window at a lonely tree
Staring out a window at a tree?

Staring at the limbs, at the limbs, at the limbs
Branching, budding, bearing, breaking
How much are we like the limbs of the tree
Branching, budding, bearing, breaking

The Yoruba, the Pygmies, Kwakiutl, aborigines
Erie, Zuni, Hopi, Potawatomi,
Maori, Masai, samurai, Menomonee,
Limbs of the ecosystem, limbs of the ecosystem,
What about you, what about me
Staring out the window at the tree lone tree
At the changing shades of the bark pale bark
Reflecting the weather and the time of day
What about you, what about me,
How much are we like the bark of a tree
Merely reflecting, merely reflecting?

Their lives are so interwoven with the ecosystem
They're as much a part of it as the wildlife, the forest,
The fish, and the genes.
Interweaving, selective breeding,
Possessive, regressive, conceiving conceding recessive.
Good, evil, wrong and right,
Are we simply wired to fight?
We are wired to be warlike, it's genetic,
We're aggressive and submissive and frenetic,
We are knaves and braves, heroic and pathetic
We are all different while we're all the same,
Who takes the credit, who takes the blame?
Who says who's better, who says who's worse,
Who makes the cradles, who drives the hearse?
Who writes the poems, who sings the psalms,
Who plays baseball, who drops bombs?
Who is gay, who is grieving,
Who is potting, who is weaving,
Interweaving, woven into intertwining, winding right through
What about me, what about you?
Interwoven, inter winding, interweaving, intertwining,

The Yoruba, the Pygmies, Kwakiutl, aborigines
Yoruba Pygmies, Yoruba Pygmies,
Yoruba Pygmies Kwakiutl aborigines
Erie, Zuni, Hopi, Potawatomi,
Maori, Masai, samurai, Menomonee.

Iraqi, Irani, Kuwaiti, Omani,
Tibetans, Tunisians, the Shiites, the Grecians
The Moslems, the Christians, the Romans, Egyptians,
The Jews and the Druse, the nuns and the Huns.
The lamas, the swamis, the mullahs, the muftis,
The monks and the imams, the Buddhas, the Brahmans
The gurus, the priors, the bhikkus, the friars,
The rabbis, the priests, the deacons, the sheiks

What about urbanites
American suburbanites
Brooklynites Muscovites
Wisconsinites, blacks and whites
What about you, what about me
How much are we
Part of the system, part of the system
How much are we
Part of the system?

© Copyright 1984 by Suzanne Rosenblatt

"...the first real poem I wrote, Yoruba Pygmies, was for a dancer, Clyde Morgan. I'd invited him to perform at a reading I was giving at the Jewish Community Center in 1984. He accepted my invitation on the condition I write something for him to dance to. It took months to write, he performed it only once, yet the poem changed my life."