starvation

A man came to their village. He arrived on foot. It was on the Marmara Sea. Olive orchards dressed hills. 

A white butterfly skimmed blue sea. It’s wings created a gentle wind passing the traveller sitting on a stone in the shade of shale. His feet pushed pebbles. Waves washed shores returning to their source, rolling millions of pebbles in the current creating a gentle musical interlude. 

The soft machine of media’s old cultural myths broke down. Desperate people tried the remote. The batteries were expired. 

They created fire sending smoke signals across the reservation to Anasazi, Navajo, Apache tribes. Flying clouds acknowledged them.

An imaginary fear of poverty and starvation gripped them. White butterflies skimmed over a cresting white wave tumbling along blue water.

Kindness and compassion eased suffering. They may or may not have been really listening.