If only our species had taken
a different path
Had not placed all bets
on our engorged organ of speech
our waxed out ears
our tightly clenched hands
grasping the plumage of bird
or scratching the clay tablet
with a reed?
Perhaps today there’d be no pontificating
about the Word, the Verb, the Book
no screaming our anguish into the winds
of six known continents
no sonar-ing our presence
to the vast boundless seas
disorienting whales
and insulting creatures of the deep
Better if we had learned the art
of rippling wave after wave
combating the strict notion of consecutive
threaded gingerly on the mystery of cause and effect
Wondered which underwater volcano, which land breeze
creature of gill or nostril
mused about coral and rock kinship
as colonies of stardust
majestically host frozen water
But as fate would have it
the curvature of the frame
now laid askew as the core boiled over
and the surface succumbed amid poisons
Not that it ever was the Word’s place
to record the collapse
to be the scribe of doom
Casting out short breaths
at different frequencies
the dominant species did its utmost
to shut out the rest of the Garden
Machete in hand it set off on its own
locked the gates of perception
organ after organ of knowledge
faltered failed, withered and fell dormant
while the rest of creation
in vain beseeched a hearing
as it was led to slaughter
And today all we have left
is a varied watery sing song
tongues of the drowned
drenched in confusion and rage
Did it all start when some fish
evolved lungs and blared out
the first sounds, their throats aghast
at their newfound power?
Yet not all creatures
chose to deny and neglect
all senses and instinct that bound them
to the whole, above, below and to the side
Humans honed their exclusivist talent
all the way to the fall of the Tower
incapable of taking a hint
kept on turning astray
from awe and complicity
And now that we have come to the final station
it may be too late to forfeit
our arrogance and humbly try to resurrect
who we could have been
All other paths are barred
but to crawl away from the center
and hope the planet will grant us a hearing
a chance at resurrection
a rekindling of the Garden,
a joyous partaking
together of the apple.
Pina Piccolo 9-10 April 2023