My rabbi teacher
used to say that God
is better at beginnigs
than at endings
it's not hard
to come up with examples

Tonight I'm thinking of
our own beginnings
back in Africa
when we were few
and this our future
on the planet
beyond imagining

Not a garden
but a forest
and savannah that
stretched on forever
wilderness we shared as equals
with both predators and prey
being ourselves sometimes
the one
sometimes the other

Shared also
with a host of
fellow creatures
who were neither
prey nor predator
but simply there
inhabiting a world
with all of us inside
a world
with no outsiders

That world is no longer
though a bit
of that wild Africa survives
guarded by men with guns
and while we might imagine
how a God once watched
the dawning of that world
he surely had no part
in what it's come to

When my rabbi teacher taught
that God was better
at beginnings we all thought him
wise and witty
but he only spoke as one
who'd never suffered
through a painful birth
nor lost a stillborn child
in other words a man

Easy to imagine
a world we'd not yet spoiled
but I wonder
were those distant ancestors
not already dreaming
of an Eden they had lost?