Esther Popel, "Kinship"
There is no God; who idly boast
That man has come from things akin
To apes; who point with pride
And proof to family trees whereon
Sit chattering all their simian ancestry!
I need but lift mine eyes and see
The Night slide down in velvet blackness
O'er a sky that late was crimson dyed
With Sun's own life-blood! Or to hearken to
The young Day's whispered murmur as she stirs
And, in her naked glory rising up, wipes the stardust
From her drowsy eyes, the while her pearl-grey couch
Takes fire and melts before the glow of her new suitor's smile!
These be sufficient proofs for me to know
There is a God! And as for ancestry--
What ape could see the wonder of the Night
As I have seen it? And what monkey-soul
Could catch the murmur of a waking world
And in it hear the voice of God proclaim
His glories?
Published in Opportunity, January 1925