A seed, whistling and sighing, fell,
And the rest of us watched, crying, not feeling
The patient, steadily drying shells
Harden around us, our skins unpeeling:
The dual softening and hardening of age,
Suffering, accident, or whatever illness
Was chosen malevolently, staged
By the bleating old goat to kill us.
And the son of the seed looked up at God,
Shook his fist - his head - then prayed for time,
While the rest of us sat with him, awkward and oddly
Nostalgic - perhaps, it occurs, for the rind
As it uncurled, and our proudest fruit
Was Useful - it was eaten,
By a more or less haphazard throat
it was swallowed; it was taken
By a more or less indifferent world,
As far as we could tell.
The rind uncurled.
Unswallowed, we fell,
As was always intended.
The old goat is greedy: "More, more!"
Grimy, taut belly distended,
He hoof-grates the ground-sore
Where the first of us died and was born,
The first shell cracking open -
Where the Seed the goat bleats for
Now grows up, and chokes him.
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