What if one woman and I
were left on the Earth
to propagate the human race?
What if we couldn’t invent anything—
from a battery to a rocket,
cure smallpox?
Adam and Eve didn’t bother
with math or technology,
the ground watered itself,
luscious fruit to pluck,
the Four Rivers pure,
animals best friends.
When they left the Garden,
they needed it all,
progressed into civilization,
the last few hundred years,
bombs, machine guns, tanks,
trains, automobiles planes,
skyrocketing technology,
computers, the Internet, I-Phones,
from agrarian to urban,
plowing to the moon.
I couldn’t create any of these things—
a failed birdhouse in shop class—
my dear wife hardly better.
I write poems,
read on the poetry circuit.
She’s a garden artist.
We can’t develop a circuit for anything
or a chip,
would never have thought of atoms,
become our hero Salk.
Glad there have been billions
to invent these marvels.
Without the weapons though,
please, without the weapons,
but, it seems, those come with the territory.
Originally published in The Green Silk Journal