integral unity

How long since
We led a natural life
Where rock and skin
Knew feel and form
And held hands
Like old friends
In long embraces?

How long since
The air breathed sweet and fresh
Upon our naked bodies
And the rains
Kissed our skin
As they swept across our lands?

Is it only in dreaming now
That we hear
The echo of that freedom?
Only when our last breath expires
that we know again the wholeness
of our unity?

Once...
When the clouds still spoke
And the trees gave loving shelter
As stars gazed down
Oblivious
And the earth stood silent witness
To our perfidy,
Did we stop and wonder
How to ever walk that path of peace again?