Now all of us were cells
In a chemistry of shells
Older than snails,
Plankton or sunbaked clay,
Fellow creatures in an afternoon
As joyous as a long lost tune
About to be remembered.
Oh all of us there
In that drenched, tropic green
Began to sing and sing,
Shedding our ties
With root and rock and sky,
As we found our song
In our living bond.
Pod and leaf, mouth and beak,
Whatever lived and breathed
That sudden afternoon,
Sang wonder through the woods,
As we heard and discovered
Each in the other
Without a word.
Until a metallic bird,
On roaring wings,
Crashed our song beneath
The hammered surf,
As it thundered,
Like lightning in a storm,
Fearfully born.
Then all of us
Grew motionless
In the sculptured undersea
Of silenced green,
Knowing, as we did again,
The thing forbidden and forgotten
In a world of men.
There will never be another,
That day was forever.
The Cave
DROP by drop
The earth is born
A billion years
From dark to dawn
Drop by drop
As rivers flow
Past sunless cliffs
No wind has known