They Turned First to the Opossum, North America, 22 November 2018

We want a word with you. For history shows us

That faith is frailer than knowledge. To wit:

When zealous Christians forced conversions,

Smashed the ancient temples, outlawed 

Any faith but their own, hunted philosophers,

And burned most of the books, they killed

Faith in the gods and cults completely, but,

Despite only tiny shreds of texts remaining,

They never forgot those philosophers and gods,

They only obliterated belief in them. When

The first Dalai Lama was appointed in Tibet

To legitimize a khan’s empire with the iron rule

Of Buddhism, the shamans of the Black Faith

Were hounded to extinction, and yet Tibetan

Buddhist monasteries and their polychromatic 

Imagery never forgot those lurid gods and ogres.

Knowledge is not power, not exactly. It’s useful,

Yes, and usually worth keeping, but belief

Is the actual locus and instrument of dominion.

Knowledge is, at its scariest, only the display

Of faith’s instruments of terror, territio realis.

To capture faith is to wield control over knowledge,

But a faith is never valuable forever. A faith

Is a species, competing and battling extinction.

Knowledge is every cache and strategy faith

Might seek to take from others and hoard for itself.

There is no rule that predicts all species, save

That they all go extinct in the end. Ways of being

Prove more archaic and durable among them.