Natives and Barbarians

As soon as sedentary

Peoples first sat down, they found

Themselves centered, surrounded

By the whirl of the mobile

Peoples they no longer were,

Nomadic barbarians

Who threatened them and native

Foragers whom they threatened.

Why sit down in the first place?

Plenty to read about that,

Not a lot of consensus.

But we’re more interested here

In that vulnerable sense

Of confinement to a dot,

Which, being surrounded, must

Be at the center of things.

The dots grew and merged, although

They also sometimes collapsed,

Harried by barbarians

Pillaging and extorting,

But encroaching on natives,

Settling and clearing more land,

Until civilization

Clearly had the upper hand.

The process, on modern maps,

Or, better, animated

As information graphics,

Looks a lot like a culture

Captured in a Petri dish,

Blooming into the corners.

Are we less vulnerable,

Now, we who are all that’s left?

It’s hard to be the center

Of a world without edges,

Surrounded by emptiness,

Only nothing invading,

Only nothing left to take,

Everyone sitting around

Dreaming of being native,

Dreaming of barbarians

When no such people exist,

Except within where we sit.