Evolution, with Anna
i.
Home is where the paths meet at the two trees waving their fingertips above the horizon;
shelter, safety, warmth in my belly by sunset if I hurry fast, faster,
OOMPH!
I reach out – grasp a curiosity, a fresh fragrance gowned in face-shaped petals near sweet berries I’ve never seen before. A handful of berries, a fistful of flowers – Anna will love them.
She’ll clap her hands, shout “Pretty, Pretty.”
Maybe we’ll take some with us after the next Moon.
ii.
Anna – or A – NAA! – clapped her chubby hands at her father’s flowers and berries back when Evolution was still young and acting up all over the place. Now he’s old and worn out, nothing much left for him to do anymore, just a rusty old phenomenon that some people don't believe ever existed. But Evolution was vigorous and feisty once, before people decided they could do things better and holier than this upstart of an i-an i id – idddeeeeeaaaaaa – ptui! – and grew stronger every time a plant that grew perfectly fine in one place got transported someplace else and adapted to the new environment, or an animal was born with a strange new part that turned out to be pretty useful. When “Pretty, Pretty!” was a pretty good reward for a father, people had imaginations instead of inductions and deductions and objections, and strict regulations about what they were allowed to notice.
And while the drama of the persecution of poor Evolution plays on the stage of fools, the Almighty watches from her seat in the centre of the Orchestra, surrounded by all the possibilities that may or may not be combined and created by the actors on stage with the props provided, and LAUGHS and LAUGHS and LAUGHS….
* Roberta Swetlow observes the world from Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada.
