We are a dream that woke up. Ardipithecus. Paranthropus. Australopithecus. Homo. Thick with sleep, we feel deeper behind our darkness to the secret light brightening all around us 250,000 years ago as the forests retreat and the savanna unrolls.
The mother of us all sits there. Will the hyenas find her in the tall grass? Their carnal stink rides the wind. She waits, hands clasped over her swollen belly. The wind will turn and betray her or not.
She closes her eyes, and a song opens softly in her mouth. She sings so quietly only the child within can hear her. “The sun is shining upon the world. The sun is shining. And you will see this light. You will know my face. And I will know yours.”
Her song did not die in her mouth. We have forgotten her face, but we remember her song. She sings to us still in the secret light of the dream that passed through her heart to wake here.