We Alone by Alice Walker

We Alone

We alone can devalue gold 
by not caring 
if it falls or rises 
in the marketplace. 
Wherever there is gold 
there is a chain, you know, 
and if your chain 
is gold 
so much the worse 
for you.

Feathers, shells 

and sea-shaped stones 

are all as rare.

This could be our revolution: 

to love what is plentiful 

We are supposed to be responsible or act responsibly by not worshiping or attaching so much value to money in our dealings. Wherever money is involved, chaos happen. And if one has lots of it, the situation gets worse.We use gold as standard for economic transactions nowadays because feathers, sea-shells that people once used as money are today quite rarely used if at all. Our foremost transformation could be our avaricious taste for 'gold', plentiful in the form of money but scarce in reality as the standard currency for economic transactions. The gold chain signify bondage to tangible items that in them self have no meaning or worth. She says we can devalue gold..this means that the things we humans hold in high regard are the things that will be of the most value, and if we disregarded tangible possessions and held love, family, and the simple things in life in high regard, then the chains of materialism and tangible possessions that have our society bond would lose there grip, thus losing there value.