This Place of a Thousand Hills

This place of a thousand hills,
this place of thousands of lives spilled,
because someone drew lines,
measured heights and noses,
created differences no one saw,
while others tried to show
how similar we were to gorillas,
to understand our origins -
sharing 98% of DNA,
such close cousins a sneeze
could wipe out whole families.

White men and women
dedicated their lives, went mad,
died to protect
African gorillas,
while hating, torturing, enslaving
African humans,
sowing divisions like potato seeds
fueling conflict and war,
delighting at the black soil sprouting
purple and white flowers
fertilized by blood and bones.

Gorillas valued over humans,
free to roam across invisible lines
cut across volcanic ranges,
new countries sewn together
with sudden borders
from sliced up bits of land
like crushed bark cloth,
while humans need
passports, papers, permission
to belong to their own land.