Almost to the Stars

Long, long ago
in the dense 
warm
rainforest
where our ancestors
swung from treetops
in the canopy,

someone fell -
a slipped grip,
a jammed finger
or caught tail -
down, down
down

they must have caught hold
of a branch
or a vine,
or the hand
of another
of their species,
a friend in a time of need

because two hundred thousand
years later
and all seven billion
of us
have had that dream - 
falling, falling
only it is not a dream,
but an ancestral memory

and maybe our ancestors knew
that someday
in some other land
their descendants - 
Us!! - 
would build another forest,
one whose canopy reached
much higher 
than those trees,
almost to the stars
Copyright © | Year Posted 2024

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