Because you come from very ancient seas —
primordial soup was broth, watered and thin —
your blood can sense bacteria with ease,
there was more ocean to perceive them in.
Your blood is therefore valuable to man
cheaper and quicker than any bunny —
contaminated drugs can’t pass your scan
protecting us and Big Pharma’s money.
Oxygen in your blood links with copper
That’s why you bleed a lovely greenish blue
racked in rows and drained with syringe and dropper
quart jars are filled with essences of you.
We monkey children naked on the beach
using your cast off molts to play at boats
have gone ashore beyond the ocean’s reach
and turned to reckless vampires in white coats.
A lack of balance threatens all our lands
our iron-based red blood is warm with greed
while tracks of your desires wash from the sands
spring tides pulled by strong moons are all you need.
You still could teach us how to glide with fate
although we call you “resources” and “bait.”
Rebecca Gilbert is a farmer at Native Earth Teaching Farm and writes a haiku almost every day.