The Human Being

                              for Daniel, with Rachel

In this workshop

Which has all the tools

You could ever want

I am going to make

A human being.

I am going to start

With skin,

A bag to fill up

With life.

I want this skin

To know no boundaries.

It must know only skin

And prickle with the life

Of other skins,

The pain and wondrous pleasure.

And yet it must be

Thick, thicker than an elephant's,

A skin for work,

A skin for battle.

The bones,

I will find them

In this bamboo forest,

Long flutes

That invite the wind.

A marrow of darkness,

Of black holes and black powder,

A coal to fire the blood

Will pack these bones.

My human being

Will wield them

And music will come

From that weapon.

Eyes.

Eyes for the human being

Must be chipped from obsidian.

They must reflect hiroshimas and holocausts,

Witness births so momentous

All become parents in their presence,

Foresee freedoms awesome and unnamed.

Eyes that give back vision

To the world.

These scraps will do

For a brain.

A brain is the least of my problems.

The human being will be born

Pure readiness,

And it will be life

That either harnesses

Or lays it waste.

I will fill the skull

With transparency,

The clarity of my first memory,

Clouds in the high wind

Challenging imagination,

Speechless peace.

Now I will make a heart.

I will make a heart

From the simplest materials

In this shop,

Using the simplest tools.

This heart is made out of labor,

Mechanic and carpenter,

Farmer and handyman

Who worked here before me.

I also go into that heart,

A piece of me.

This heart is a shell

Filled with the roar

Of the world.

It is a fist, a generous hand.

I will not make it

To last forever,

But I will arm this heart

With the knowledge of its role,

The power of its example.

It will serve the human being

Well.

My human being

Coming to life

Before me

Must be equipped

To enforce life,

Nurture and summon it forth

From almost nothing,

Virtually everything.

I will fashion its sex

From the toughest and most tender

Of things,

Erect and deep things,

Wise things that inhabit the sun.

And so the human being

Is ready,

Unfinished but ready,

Singular yet plural,

Perfect and flawed.

Now he must make

The world.

                                    -- New York, July 30, 1981