Adding

 

Addition is never perfect, even at the point of cloning.
When God said, increase and multiply, was He
thinking of a process towards achieving the ideal
by some genetic division of cells, possibly reaching
a decimal when all the DNAs devolving from Adam
and Eve downwards have finally congregated
in a total specimen—a sort of second Christ in
a time coming. Now, who would want to crucify that?

Well, certainly envy. Certainly hate, perfect things by
themselves. Add hate to hate, for instance, and what
is summed up can be demonstrated in the human
form of subtraction, war or murder, perfect pictures
both. Who would want to burn such enigmatic photos?

We love hate as much as hate loves to cling to us.
And so addition, balancing itself on a tight rope
with subtraction, amidst all the rapid divisions
within multiplications. That's the population
God didn't intend when He said, "increase."

But suppose we invert it: "multiply and increase."
Not that I'm thinking of dinosaurs. Rather, there's
the demand on our performance as humans to
either increase our humanity by leaps and bounds
in a sort of additions to DNAs already deemed perfect.

 

 

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This poem takes after a profound piece titled Pi, written by one of this poet's favorite humorists in poetry, the Polish Nobel Laureate Wislawa Szymborska.

 

 

 

Copyright © 1999, 2004 Vicente-Ignacio Soria de Veyra. All rights reserved. Readers are welcome to view, save, file and print out single copies of this webpage for their personal use. No reproduction, display, performance, multiple copy, transmission, or distribution of the work herein, or any excerpt, adaptation, abridgment or translation of same, may be made without written permission from the author. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this work will be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

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