“You are old when you’re
born,”
Stephen Simpson* said,
speaking more as biologist
than philosopher
though like a stem cell
he’s pluripotent and could
be either
neither or both.
So much living and dying
during those nine months:
clefts, gills and neural
ridges
thrown up, filled in, torn
down –
a time-lapse drama of
evolution
played on the foetal ocean
floor.
Your cells by nine months
are wearied by wars
have forged truces with
alien forces
built machines underwater
visited palaces drawn from
fine tissue
played parts in
evolutionary dramas
relaxed briefly on now
sunken islands.
By birth your genes have
had their day
your destiny set. I've
heard
earnest clerics say we
should
be born again. Terrible
penance
surely to go through that
once more.
*Academic Director, the Charles Perkins Centre, the University
of Sydney
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