I

When the separation we call 'cultures'
Divided the world
And then subdivided it
Into divisions dividing

What lies in between us,
What we have in common,
Misunderstood and misinterpreted
Through the translations and the pantomimes

Describing the gods, the leaders
Those that led us away from each other
Across oceans and continents
Into the founding of city states,

Those fantastic empires
We still see to this day,
In ruins, scattered around the globe,
Those pyramids pointing to the stars

Or some such place,
A summer solstice
Or winter solstice,
A forgotten ceremony

Described in the fragments
Of sacred tablets
Scattered across the dust
On the tops of the mountains.

II

A hand
From a hand
Reaching out to grasp
What is no longer there,

Some idea at the center of us
We can't quite fathom
Or put together
Out of its pieces;

An isolated chromosome
Of a genealogical connection
To an ancestor
Inside of us,

Diluted through evolutions
Like fragments of glass
Across fragments of sand
Across immeasurable miles

Across the immeasurable miles of time
That we call history,
We try to decipher
What is undecipherable,

Trying to find a place
That no longer exists,
Reconstructing it
Out of fragments of plans for it.

III

What separates us now
Is more than distance,
More than an evolution
From a starting point;

The breaking of a ceremonial urn
Into a thousand pieces
Of a thousand pieces
Of

Dreams, hope, faith, trust, love
Scattered across our civilizations
Around landmarks we no longer recognize,
That whole piece, that sacred place

A moment in time,
A flash of light,
A lightning moment
Lost in the voids of space.

IV

Those mysterious gods
Like faces on vases,
Abstract, symbolic,
Vaguely drawn

Thousands of years ago
Where we stood
Once, together,
Listening to the sermons

Of Moses,
Or Christ,
Or Buddha,
Or Mohammed,

Their words
A shared Eden,
A tree of knowledge
A paradise

Glittering overhead
Like stars above oceans
Where the gathered multitudes
Stare at each other, speaking in tongues.

V

Speaking in tongues
Of languages broken apart
Into pieces,
Into

Descriptions of shared experiences,
Dreams, faith, love, hope
Like the faces on vases
Found across the globe

Describe us to ourselves
In pictographs, hieroglyphics,
Phonics, monoliths;
Those fabulous monoliths

Inscribed with forgotten symbols;
Suns, moons, stars,
Pointing out heaven,
God.