Do you imagine God used his thumbs
when he formed Adam from the dust?
Something was missing although the creation was good.

Not something that wouldn’t fit,
shut out or stunted, it was
something that belonged,
something made of the same substance,
hinted at in his very bones.

I wonder if Adam asked the lions
to tell him about themselves before
he gave to them their name.
I bet Eve could read the tigers’ behavior
and guess the name he’d given.

I wonder if ever she’d had such fun
as throwing her head back and laughing
whenever Adam swung around
and sang a vision dreamed of how
the garden ought to grow.

A learned gardener, he cared for the plants
to raise them as his very
Lord’s, grinning and thrusting
his thumbs into the dust. 

I’ve heard there’s dust inside this room,
left from bodies that here have lain.
I’ve heard the dust unwelcomes me,
though it hints at the earth inside my veins.
But I don’t notice any dust,
just something else that hints
that something is missing.

It isn’t something that wouldn’t fit,
that is shut out or stunted,
but something that belongs,
something made of the same substance
that pumps red through all these rooms.

It’s in the glow of the chair on the wall
and in the home’s design.
It lives and wraps around me as
I slip beneath a black bear to sleep.

The call that all the roosters
around me are crowing
are to this music heard inside my head-
the sheet music painted here,
the playing of it
missing.

And so I sing, quietly,
and maybe next time I’ll sing louder.
Sometime, I’m sure I’ll sing with others,

maybe when I throw my head down
and cry, or when
our tears have been wiped dry.