Diversity, like magic, wanes directly
In proportion to the knowing of it.
When the human diaspora, unaware
Of any given peoples much beyond
The next island, valley, or river over
Had gotten most of the way around
The world, the numbers of customs,
Beliefs, and languages hit their peak.
By the time people cherished other
Customs and languages than theirs
Enough to start preserving them,
Diversity's decline was irreversible.
Turn away. Be glad. Decline sorrow.
Your fate is weird enough already,
Your destiny was bound to be
Bent from the moment it befell
The combinatory molecules to be
You, or someone very much like you.
How do you like that? Roll a die,
Roll an ankle, the world falls down
Or turns aside as it tumbles to land
Again, sunny side up. Magic. It is,
Like diversity, most potent before
It becomes of any importance.
What you don't know you need
Can't stir you. How still you've
Become, now you think you'll simply
Set a spell. You got here somehow,
Some multiplying, ramifying magic
Among all the forking tongues
Your ancestors invented, all the ways
You could have never become,
You came, and then, divertissement,
You came to find this one, green,
Quiet, housed, singular, happy day,
And you want to save all of it,
Every diverging detail of these trees
Around this home that is now you
And yours, finally, bindingly, arrived,
But you don't know what to say.