Dichotomy

Painting and Poem by Abe V Rotor

Glass painting, AVR c. 2005

I wonder what the world is like without you:

. the seed wakes up to a new life

only when weaned strong;

. trees without branches and stems

would be like palms and ferns;

. horns not in pair make defense futile,

save the rhino, and the unicorn;

. unpaired limbs, claws and wings

make the reptiles and fish rule;

. plants in the garden would not

submit to Fibonacci's sequence;

. flocks, herds and colonies grow

unless resources are short;

. the living minutiae, the amoeba

and its kin would be more mean.

these and others unheeding your call -

would they rather make a new realm?

I wonder what we humans are like without you:

. where truth from falsehood rises

yet unseen by mob or the strong;

. to decipher beauty and defy

contrast and morality;

. to travel on the Augustinian road

not of man but of God;

. why men die for their beliefs,

at the end, proved to be right;

. why half of the world suffers

while the other has too much;

. cries and laughter echo from halls

and altars, in war and peace;

. yet humans live and die as one race

repeatedly in history.

I wonder if dichotomy is a grand design

of unity and diversity in continuum,

and make the world go on and on. ~