Natural Selection

A poem.

Oh God, Oh Lord
Are we the Less, derived from More?
Not replica, mirror image nor
Identical—but similar?
A lineage, a germ, a core—
The divine kernel inside—Yours?
Let there be More, oh Lord, oh Lord.

If God is One and God is Three
Could there exist a god in Me?
Not atoms nor void solely be—
But essence holy? Wholly free?
Divine decree? Darwin’s degree?
A nadir, or an apogee?
Farther, my God, from thee, from thee.

Oh God, Oh, My
Are we the More, from Less refined?
A helix spore, a gnarled vine
Tangled, tore, and serpentine
Eternal, infinite—Divine?
A timelike light, a lightlike time
Platonic form or blink of eye?

Good God, God Damn
If there is nothing More than Man
Then for what purpose bled the Lamb?
Why’d Abraham forsake the ram?
Nothing plotted, nothing planned
No reason, rhyme, no “greater than.”
A wasteland where a river ran,

goddamn, goddamn, goddamn.

and yet:
the aggregate of all our shame, all our pain
rings like church bells, falls like rain
an aspect, a facet, imperfect light reflects
in death we return to the dust whence we came

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by Benji Mahaffey