At Sea

we will not be back

to this port

for a long while

we sold the

local merchants here

fifty barrels of whale oil

but ten barrels

tucked in the back

of the horse drawn wagon

hauling off the purchase

were full of nothing but salt water

we set sail that very night

under darkness' cover

in the rising tide of the harbor

knowing full well they would

have no means in that century

to come after us

to reclaim their silver

from a vessel disappearing

out to sea

but what does it matter

in the next century

and the century after that

even as we hunted

ever silent whales

as we became

rarely sighted apparitions

in the ocean's fog

they would do way more

to recompense the loss

they stole the continent

from the indigenous

to build their nation

worked their farms

and factories

with slave labor

made it a tenet

of their state religion

to apply the lesson

we had taught them

in classrooms

and military rallies

they would recite

as a pledge of

fealty and allegiance

our parting motto

-do it unto others

they would repeat

again and again

without a thought

-before they do it unto you