Guilt, innocence, loaned light and dark,
life's package emerges; gift-wrapped
uniquely in live litmus paper, flesh;
it's blue now. Then the first breath;
after air takes his first walk
down the new passage, it's pink—
As the new road opens up to live traffic
both planners lean over the bedside
thrilled with dust's latest arrival;
through ecstatic meeting of clay
plus nature's abracadabra,
flash! now someone who's never been
is— Through live bread and water
over a framework of bones
again light announces I am
and the dark? New face means new fate:
for both parents, growth and decay,
life's plant on death's trellis, Thank God
THOMAS DORSETT
--Cornfield Review, 1977
