Written piece
Commonality
Claire Thomson
United Kingdom
About this piece
Commonality is a short poem about shared humanity – and how our similarities can ultimately cause us to diverge in our sense of belonging. The poem suggests that, in reality, it is our differences that bind us together in a beautifully diverse singularity.
Commonality
Ninety-nine-point nine percent of me is
within you, your lineage carries me
at its breast as we suckle from the same
primordial soup, nourishing us sip by sip.
Together we seek the shelter of health,
and reach for the touch of the skin of our kin.
Our infinite patterns are immeasurable treasure,
pursued for the self to bring pleasure to others.
We tumble together in our chamber’s curves
of birth and living, intimacy and death,
while wondering at petrichor notes and
where on this earth if anywhere, we belong.
Our needs for belonging and divergence create
tribes dividing, driving fear through humanity’s
heart – a turbulent cavity of suspicion
where the love of our cousins should live.
The naught-point-naught one is the space
through which our diverse threads can weave
a vast human tapestry, swaddling us together
– in our singularity.