Rift Valley

At the edge of the canyon,
Looking down upon the haze…
Which hides the future of this planet,
Home, our earth through all the days
Which have been and will come.
I hear the running feet of those yet to follow.
At the end of such life as I call my own
I glimpse that yet to come;
Springing from me in the future
Trees of family shall run.
I have carried the seed:
Conceived from me, all people multiply forward.
When it’s over they will dig me from the gorge
And proclaim that I am the first Man:
First soldier, first speaker, first tool-user,
That with me civilisation began, in some order.
I have stumbled…
Is it right or am I planned?
Still I feel it
Still I know that some day
The world will fall to this human hand,
This clenched fist.
If that’s the way it’s going to be
I can only say “Good luck!”.
You Men who follow on from me
Must crawl your way out of here
Or all our lives’ll be
Trapped in the chasm.
The dying day:
I stand upon the edge, stare down
At what’s to come below.
In a way there’s all the future in me,
Destiny already known.
Already tired in my heart,
I start the long walk forward
Into Rift Valley,
To rest in Rift Valley.
Still instinctively trying to save my kind
I survive into the future.