Dyēus stood and broke the silence, looking at the brood and spoke,
“You cannot remember primordial days and the ways I formed mortals
Of sea and land, dirt and sand; cannot remember my hand digging
In watery earth to birth you into life, no cord to cut with knife;
You cannot remember how I led you across the coastline and fed you.
You had no sense of my presence, and made no pretense to be more
Than you were, slipping in and out of brackish water, moving about
Upon the earth so timidly, no home or hearth; but then you learned
And burned with passion, moved across the land, led by my own hand,
And made your bed in valleys and mountains and plains; it was then
You learned pain ~ your dawn of awareness ~ and the yawning grave;
You became more than knaves; you saw me then for the first time
As the bells of heaven chimed. We walked and talked with one another,
Yet I was everywhere; you sensed this, praising me with incense
Even when you could not see me in one form, you knew I could be
In another one, from grass and trees to sun and moon, in biting
Of frost and in the monsoon, in the sky overhead and in the bed
Of flowers fair, in the air and water and wind that bends trees
And scatters their leaves, as the ocean heaves. Everywhere could
You see me and feel me, so when I appeared you would kneel to me.
Now look what has happened; look in polluted brook, ravished hills,
In melting ice caps and thrice cracked earth to extract its worth;
Here now you are plundering and killing my magnificent creation,
Willing me, Dyēus, to die rather than try to save your very own home!
Ah! What an horrible tome to write, no longer knowing wrong from right;
My children, my progeny in the cosmic homogeny, who no longer know. . .
I AM