A String of Beads

The world starts as one
mass, Pangaea, borderless,
womb for all to come.

Then lava flows hot,
ash rains, climate shifts, wind bites.
No one sees. Until

Empty-handed Eve,
bare toes gripping paradise
hungry with questions,

Balanced on the edge
where the soul wakes and dreams breed
possibility.

Ablaze in darkness
an eland leaps on cave walls
brushed by mystery.

Paint fingered on face.
Beads on leather thong, feathers
for eagle magic.

Power shifts to spears.
Muscles train for strategy.
Hunt turns into fight.

Borders form, and names:
Us and Them. Identity
divides Pangaea.

Drumbeat leads children
into staccato tattoo
against Eden’s hymn.

Words become banners.
Patriots sing us to war
and bullets rattle.

Dust motes dance in air.
How long is a string of beads?
So is life measured.

We are the old ones,
renewed each generation,
trading chromosomes,

reading footprints in
dry sand: prehistory we
recall from afar.

While beneath our feet
Pangaea continues her
continental drift.

Someday she will slam
land masses reuniting
and begin again.

.

Patricia Lucas grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area in California but has lived most of her life in South Africa: a country where everyone must make choices for peace almost every day. This poem describes confrontations between continents, species, cultures: how our history is a cycle of reaching, breaking and learning from the past.