Once again I kneel

before this womb-tomb,

this chthonian well, miasmic swamp

that draws me down from the sky,

from my cool peripheral throne

into the simmering centre,

the formless fluids

of my weeping genesis.

It seemed, even then,

even before the cord was cut

that my creation was a triumph

of order over chaos,

sun over moon,

shape shaping the shapeless

in the pulsing, murky pond -

murky and mysterious;

and as the first atom clung to the next,

as cell upon cell built the wall of my mind,

I thought I heard my father call

(a laughing call, laced with tears),

whose birth, like mine,

was the ultimate climactic revolution,

a vain, but glorious defiance of the great whore

to whose belly we return -

 Jonah to his whale,

to be spewed out limp and humble

on some unknown shore,

born anew,

a little more,

a little less