Homeostasis, 2 May 2018

At Sandby Borg ring fort on Öland Island,
Life went on without historians for centuries.
Some things got better. Other things worse.
Sometimes, more things seemed to be
Getting better and life felt promising.
Sometimes, more things seemed to be
Getting worse and life felt threatening.
One day, we don’t know exactly when,
Some men came, we don’t know who.
They separated all the women and girls.
They sequestered all the weapons. Then,
They killed all of the males: men, boys, infants.
They smashed their skulls, crushed their chests.
One old man fell into a hearth and burned
Either after or as he died. An adolescent
Fell backward over a man already dead.
One boy lived a little while, lying on his side.
In one house alone, nine bodies strewn.
We don’t know in what order these things
Were accomplished, but after the killing,
The killers left. Other than the weapons
And the women, they seem to have taken
Nothing. No one returned to burn or bury
The dead. Sandby Borg rotted quietly, abandoned,
Awaiting the excavations of archaeologists.
Meanwhile, a millennium on in Peru, on a cliff
Overlooking the ocean, in the land of the Chimú,
Well over a hundred children, two hundred
Llamas, and at least a couple of grown women
Were ritually slaughtered, the llamas strangled
With ropes, the children cut open at the chest,
Probably to get at, then pull out, their hearts.
The two women had their heads smashed in,
And all were interred together on the cliff
Just outside of history. Evidence suggests
This was done during a drought. Some things
Get better, others worse. Sometimes, more
Things seem to be getting better than are getting
Worse, and life feels promising. Sometimes,
More things seem to be getting worse,
And life feels threatening. One day.