I Can Own The Land

I Can Own The Land

He walks his acres three times a year,
checks the gates, the walls, the fences—
everything his grandfather took
and he inherited like gospel.

He says he owns it.
The dirt, the sky, the air itself.

I stood in my own yard once,
looking past the cluttered mess,
past fences that cut the sea from view,
holding a deed in one hand
and staring at the trees with the other.

Who owns the sky?
Who signs the paperwork on the ocean?

A friend of mine believed he could.
Believed it hard enough to say it out loud.

But Mother Nature watches from above,
tears in her eyes,
letting fools believe they hold a piece of her.

She’s patient. She can wait.

Because long after the boasting stops
and the deeds turn to dust,
they’ll feed the land they claimed to own.
They’ll become the soil,
nourish the roots,
give back everything
they spent a lifetime hoarding.

It’s in their nature to try to own her.
And it’s in hers to take it all back.