Lost Innocence

They came in ships
With billowy sails
The men in black
With white round collars
They buried their stake
On our sandy beach
Clothe thyself heathens
wanton showing of thy body
sinful art thou in the eyes of God
sinners all parading thy flesh

They made us wrap
Cloth on our beauty
No more were we free
To swim in the waves in totality
To bask in the sun
To laugh at dew on pert nipples…
Instilled from elders of yore
We knew not adultery
No knowledge of the flesh
Until…for Virgins were we to our wedding beds

So wrapped we were
Knelt on hard earth to a foreign god
They said He made us
He didn’t provide us Cloth
The Padre said love was a sin
when blessed by Shamans
did not constitute marriage
We bowed our heads
They knew better the disciples
Of strange tongues

Nature washed out by baptism
Of water, yet from nature
Bowed to a God unknown
We stumbled on to the dawn
of the White
Losing the innocence
Along the way
They applauded
We were no longer ignorant
Or innocent.