Stuff

How long can we continue
enmeshed in our consumptive patterns,
gathering, building,
devouring and discarding,
spilling,
and spilling,
more, more and more;
deluding ourselves
that want equals need, and that see equals want;
that "they have" means "I should have, too."

No wonder our souls
and our oceans are on fire
with the stress and the swirling
with all of the wanting and all of the needing:
we're confusing our hunger for a feeling of belonging
with desire for a roof to put over our belongings,
which we then thrust aside
-- or expand, or rebuild --
so we can pile in still more
stuff.


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