(Jovis Aloor/Unsplash)

What is heredity but centuries
  of births, deaths, journeys,
  weddings, wars, surprises
  and griefs?
                   History becomes
  no more than outdated updates
  of dateless orbits of the earth.
In time these turn irrelevant
  or vague as honors and as vain.
Outliving Eden and its myths,
  we find in space what
  saves us.
                  Since breath has
  no birthdays, I say that Genesis
  begins all over every time
  we breathe.           
                    Each time I face
  a mirror, I’m looking at Adam.

Published in the July/August 2021 issue: View Contents
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Samuel Hazo, a National Book Award–finalist and former State Poet of Pennsylvania, is the author of novels, essays, and plays. His two most recent books of poetry are When Not Yet Is Now and The Next Time We Saw Paris.

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