Blood Memory

poem and video performance

Photo by JJ Ying on Unsplash

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Blood Memory

All of the DNA that’s ever existed

still exists now. At any moment,

you might breathe in a piece

of Jesus. But you might also

inhale a bit of Hitler or Ted Bundy.

Or take in the skin-dust

of the kid pushing shopping carts

back into the supermarket.

All of us are intimate

with good, evil, and the ordinary,

though our understanding

of good, evil, and ordinary is no more

important than a hummingbird’s

philosopy. But think of this:

When you sit across a table

from a person whom you love,

you are breathing them in

as they breathe you in.

When you feel your lungs

bursting, you are bursting

with them. This is how

the world works. We are not

separate beings. You and I

are built from the same rivers

and trees. We are hummingbirds.

The hummingbirds are you and me.

When we choose to love

another person—when we choose

to love rivers, hummingbirds,

and trees—then we are, by proxy

and by imagination, choosing to love

what evolution has created.