This appeared in the most recent issue of 'Markings'.
The Experiment
He’s mixed the chemicals,
simulated comets, lightning,
mud and lava.
The strands are replicating
just as they would have done
three billion years ago.
They rustle and thresh under the microscope.
They smell almost human.
He recognises this one, that one,
the sad, the satisfied,
the triumphant,
his children. None of them
are damned yet nor even
predestined. He wonders
what snake, what garden will be theirs.
He remembers Sunday School.
Jesus with his beard and his lamp,
God is Love in coloured ink:
theologies as innocent as petals,
a brief, jewelled scattering
on a long, dark road.
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