Forgetting Tradition

tradition  

is the wound we press against  

when everything else breaks apart  

but now  

we unravel it, thread by thread  

as if its weight  

is too heavy to carry  

we call chaos  

progress dressed in louder words  

a room of voices screaming  

but no one  

asks the children what they learned  

we turn from the stories  

written before our bodies were born  

rejecting their wisdom  

because their roots intertwine with soil  

older than we care to trust  

religion whispers  

in the cracks of silence  

yet we drown it out  

because tradition feels like  

chains instead of hands  

the oceans of difference  

ripple in gender, in belief  

breaking boxes we have built  

but forgetting  

why those boxes ever held us  

somewhere above the noise  

the earth waits—  

patient, quiet  

holding the traditions we threw away.