Nod to God
From A Littoral Zone
Carrefour Press, 1991
by
© 1991 by Douglas Livingstone. Used with permission.
(
Perhaps creationists are nearly right:
an enigmatic principle formed cells
- evolving scientific law by night -
informed with more ahead than heavens or hells.
Irradiating slime-flecks day by day,
it watched (with love?) rash chromosomal loops
unwind, reform, transform their DNA
to struggle up from primed primeval soups.
Unstrung mutations - random nightmares - made
headstrong mistakes. Selection took its toll:
free-will incurs some debts. The debts get paid.
Still, it evades the puppet-master's role.
Far from its image, vestiges in me
recall a time I once breathed in its sea.
Douglas Livingstone (1932-1996) is generally regarded as South Africa's leading contemporary poet. He was a marine biologist for the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research at Congella, and later an environmental consultant. His writings include plays, essays, poetry translations, and seven collections of his poems.
