To the man in the desert building a house of sand I hope you kept a record

Leonard Cohen

The First Birth

Did you ever think of how horrific the first birth must have been

Unexpected, a child fell, hung bloody, both of them screaming alone

In tall grass of Africa, more than likely unsuccessful

Did she run to escape the miniature tormentor, dragging it

For miles till it stopped screaming

Or did she grasp a stone with brand new opposable thumbs

And silence it with technology. Or dive into the lake

To wash it quiet, eyeing for tigers, wading while blood reached

For the surface, and was it raining or hot, weather we have never seen.

We can guess she did not bury it or give it a name.

Let’s suppose soon after, in a safe place, she invented a song

Without words, a gentle howl, a godless mimeses of another earth;

A kind born cry of mortality.