The Human Race

You take a tiny story,
Sharpened needle, and some thread.
You can stitch a tribe with them.

What’s called the hero’s journey
Never starts from a hero.
First, you have to have a threat

Gathering, shapeless, plural,
An outside all around you,
Converging to gulp you whole.

Then you must gather your friends,
Your allies against the threat,
Your plucky band of comrades

And true folk, your family,
Your brave people who will bond
Against outer wickedness

And all punch above your weight.
The hero’s a figurehead,
A stand-in for the ego

And the soul of your people,
And the rightness of your cause
In every heroic myth.

Beyond that, it’s just a race
Among the storytellers
Or, more exactly, among

The stories lurching around
Like giants made of bodies
Trying to throw each other

Into history to drown,
The race of all the races,
Of all the heroic groups

Who find some fate in common,
Who wear the same story clothes
That shelter and devour them

While racing to collect more
To stuff into more stories
To win glory in the race.