Creation

no one can say
if this is exactly how it happens
but we know it is true:

you are born dumb
but you will learn someday
that something ancient exists
that is yours,
that was made
for you.

you may be a child upon its arrival,

or you may find it
later, stroking
your own child’s head
as he lies in a fever.
cooling his skin
with compresses
while you recognize
the presence standing by the door,
you may be moved to chant
the long story:

there is a dance
for it in every lost village.
there is an arrowhead somewhere,
a million years old,
that was chipped
by a tiny, tufted thing —
barely a human at all —
that stone
was its first home
and now, you hold the deed.

there is something ancient
that was made for you. in order
to preserve itself it chooses you
in the place you are most ready
to receive it. it lives because
you live, because we live…

we don’t know how it happens.
this is just the way it is.