Genesis, redux: In the beginning… Ghazal #133, from Ghazals For The Friend, by Bill Gannett

In the beginning, God was sleeping and heaved a sigh
That breathed me into being with the gasp of my first cry:

I am born as gas! And thus began my cosmic journey-
To suffer all form in time, and from all form in time be free.

Gas is nothing but space, and without boundary;
To establish identity, however, this is a quandary.

I fell in love with dull rock and all its many edges;
I hugged myself intensely down through the ages.

At last, my self-regard wore away to reveal some light;
I became shiny metal- don’t think this advance was slight!

After millions of years, and I had become pure gold,
I longed to reach for the Sun as a puddle of mold.

This was more than brilliant, you see, because as vegetable,
I could breathe and twitch a bit, and become more colorful.

After eons as all kinds of plants, I still longed to move.
As a worm inching about, I found, I had lots to prove.

In short, my life as a reptile was rather cold and snaky:
I never had the slightest regard for my dinner’s plea!

But when I became a fish, I learned how to swim,
Although the deep dark depths of ocean got pretty dim.

At last, after I had become an acrobatic dolphin,
I yearned to get my wings, and began to start flying.

Ages after ages flew by as this and that kind of bird:
I got really tired of basically the same aerial mood.

Then, I began to grunt and discovered animal bliss;
I soon fell in love with my sharp, ferocious kiss.

Ages crawled, then clambered, pranced and raced by;
At last I was a chimpanzee, gesticulating with my cries.

Don’t laugh- I was about to master the syllable:
After many millions of years, I would start to babble!

O happy day, when I first found out about human speech-
I could draw upon all I had learned, and begin to teach.

Darvish, shut your mouth- you’re not quite believable.
Please fall at the feet of the dear Master, most lovable!

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