All the More Human, for Eve Pandora
by Michael R. Burch
a lullaby for the first human Clone
God provide the soul, and let her sleep
be natural as ours, unplagued by dreams
of being someone else, lost in the deep
wild swells of losing all that "human" means ...
and do not let her come to doubt herself—
that she is as we are, so much alike
in frailty, in the books that line the shelf
that tell us who we are—a rickety ****
against the flood of doubt—that we are more
than cells and chance, that love, perhaps, exists
because of someone else who would endure
such pain because some part of her persists
in us, and calls us blesséd by her bed,
become a saint at last, in whose frail arms
we see ourselves—the gray won out of red,
the ash of blonde—till love is safe from harm
and all that "human" means is that we live
in doubt, and die in doubt, and only love
the more because we only know to strive
against an end we loathe and fear. What of?—
we cannot say, imagining the Night
as some weird darkened structure caving in
to cold enormous pressure. Lacking sight,
we lie unbreathing, thinking breath a sin ...
and that is to be human. You are us—
true mortal, child of doubt, hopeful and curious.
Keywords/Tags: Eve, Pandora, human, clone, humanity, human being, human condition, evolution, birth, death, life and death, soul, soulmate, saint, youth
