An Evolving Course

We began as a mineral.

We emerged into plant life and into

the animal state, and then to being human.

And always we have forgotten our former states,

except in early spring,

when we dimly recall being green again.

That is how a young person turns

toward a teacher, how a baby leans

toward the breast, without knowing

the secret of its desire,

yet turning instinctively.

So humankind is a being led along

an evolving course through this migration 

of intelligences, and though we seem

to be sleeping, there is an inner wakefulness

that directs the dream.

It will eventually startle us back

to the truth of who we are.