Creation Myth
By Lisa Wells
Born again on a Monday
under a broken zodiac.
My father the woodman, a surgeon among snags,
could read the living trail of blades rebounding
in the field, the mopped-matte passage through the dew.
He woke a brush pile with fire
throwing shadows on the child, I was
thrown over.
Father, it was a pleasure to meet you
on this luminous route between two lives.
In this impromptu pool reaped from rain
where mosquitos multiply.
Though survival, I’m told, is impersonal
and without teleological purpose.
Malaria is just trying to maximize its own fitness
as are the corporations who, for palm oil set
the peatlands ablaze and drained the water table.
Dense haze from the sea
choked the light from day
suffused our mountain
in a numinous red corona.
And as for the getting over
there will be no ascension,
no circumambulation,
there is only going through.
We must go through it.
Copyright Credit: Lisa Wells, “Creation Myth.” Copyright © 2018 by Lisa Wells. Used by permission of the author for PoetryNow.
Source: PoetryNow (2018)