Gestation

A nascent seed inset

As a gemstone in the womb;

A yet unpolished jewel

Time itself has hewn

And change, the lapidary

Is proud of its past work

The 9-month prologue is an epilogue

When the dead again are heard

Like a ‘previously, on Earth,”

Each ancestor gets its due;

To tell again the story of

From where, from when, to whom

The single cell says its soliloquy

The worm weaves symmetry

The fish lends a fin that leads

To hands, lungs, and eventually,

From the chiseling of the dead—

To a glinting human grown

Stumbling with legs of lead

As if still shedding stone

Thereafter and in earnest

Words and wisdom are engraved

Leaving fully burnished

A mind clearer than a mirror

But even then, as artful men

Dissect life upon the page

The lapidary seeks perfection

And man is but a stage

So, the stone is hewn,

The jewel forever polished

Within the earthly womb,

Until the Crafter gets its wish:

A set of eyes to see itself

Legs to cross the starlit sea,

A body to withstand its breath;

A mind to contemplate its depth.

Only then will the timeworn tools

Produce a godly gleam

For polished they the perfect jewel

That gestated in a dream