Genesis
There are two family trees
Growing in fields far apart,
Yet the same sun feeds
Their myriad leaves,
Nurtures each soft unfolding,
Carelessly, as every god does -
The agenda uncertain;
And who’s to choose
The fates of these?
(It’s a tragedy, of course,
Greek, written by Anemophilous.)
The trees are old, of course,
Everything reaches back,
Everything must connect –
Darwin flecked, the past
Perfects itself in the future.
Each extinction a casting
Off of the failure
To see what was to come,
A leaving behind
Of the halt and the lame;
And to come was this: Us.
Even without God,
The definite article that is,
It’s a faith built on hubris.
Some believe in a more
Accidental evolution,
A lucky dip;
Our fingers sticky with chance,
And licked with glee
As we made it up a step;
Not so much a climbing down from
More a falling out of the tree.
Ah, the fall ... there’s the rub:
Mea culpa, mea culpa,
Mea maxima culpa.
Back to God:
The apple never falls far from the tree
And there has to be suffering.
Who wouldn’t want a heaven?
Move over,
There’s room on that cross for two.
Yes, the trees are old,
Their boughs and branches
Cast long shadows,
A shading from the sun,
A simple need to protect,
To keep under cover,
To maintain the flavour
Of the soupy stock.
Heinz 57; DNA.
Yet seeds in their thousands
Are released to indifferent winds,
Scimitar the air, spin,
Are carried to distant lands;
Or fruit is eaten
And birds take wing,
Swinging out over fields,
Crossing cities and towns,
Countries and continents,
Shitting indiscriminately.
Somewhere – here -
Two saplings shoulder
Up through the humus,
Bending tenuous
Stems towards the light;
Their numb heads favour heat,
Nuzzle up to warmth -
Replete in a secular blindness.
One bears fruit
(A thin skin wrapped around
The soft pale flesh,
Easily pitted);
The other nuts (gnarled
And knotted, hard to crack).
Their branches enfold,
And they grow into each other;
They caress;
They entwine;
They marry,
Urgent with the sap they carry.
Finally, they swarm,
And they smother,
Lying one upon the other.
And a shoot,
Green tipped, trusting,
Noses up through the earth,
Exhales the thin oxygen
Of hope and of death.
[Exeunt stage left.]
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