Who belongs in this country?

The natives who were here first?

The descendants of the first

Europeans to set foot on its shores?

Or the enslaved Africans

stolen from their homes?

Or the descendants of the

indentured servants who

worked for their freedom?

Or those crossing the Mexican

border as I write?

In Mother Earth’s world

everything belongs.

Different colors and textures,

the animate and the inanimate,

all beings large and small.

The peep of the sparrow,

and the hawk’s raucous cry,

the prickly gumball

and the smooth moss.

The heat and the cold,

the mountains and the plains,

the rivers and the oceans,

the raging tornado and the morning dew.