They Used To Arrange Themselves In Circles - Dustin Vado

They used to arrange themselves in circles
but now live in silent squares.

They used to sit with legs folded, palms up
in communal silent prayer.

They used to kill their game, and clean
it's entrails barehanded,

but now they starve surrounded by choices,
the growl of a stomach stranded.

Was there a TV to watch in an adobe hut?

Was there a toilet to flush in a straw shack?

Was there plaster coating the flesh of teepee walls?

Is there love in the cookie cutter home, uniform and bland?

When seen from the sky, the modern box
is a regimented matrix of near rhymes

while the old villages that evolved to cities
still circle around elders of simpler times.

Along the hard lines of concrete jungles
in the canopy of man,

the ants no longer look like apes
rolling with their cubs in metal caravan.

Gone are the days of primitive spirals,
home of the fearless, gentle and fair,

enter the age of automated primates
who just sit, eat, and stare.