I think about
the number
sixty million
it is hard for me to understand it
does a hillside of spring grass
even contain sixty million
individual leaves of grass
I try something smaller
there are
one hundred thousand people
in this city I live in
and that is more
than I could ever meet or know
and it’s hard for me to picture
the whole of this city’s population
all at once
so again I go smaller
my hometown
had a few thousand people
but even that was too much
to truly picture together
my high school
had three hundred
and I can picture us
in the high school auditorium
even that feels like
so much life
contained in one room
it is so strange
that the human mind
can’t seem to comprehend
anything behind a few hundred
living breathing things
yet we’ve dropped bombs
that have reduced cities to ash
yet we have prompted policies
that have starved millions
yet we reduced the herd
that was the closest thing
to the owners of this landscape
to a mere twenty three
from sixty million
twenty three is a number
I can comprehend
twenty three is a number
that feels so small
sixty million
to twenty three
we may not be able
to truly comprehend
these numbers we discuss
but it seems easy for us
to kill in quantities
beyond which we can understand