I pulled them from the silt, half-made, half-cursed,
and left them with a hunger none could tame,
I gave them thumbs, language, ceaseless thirst—
they learned to want, and wanting, built the flame.

I watched them stagger upright, slick and strange,
and name the beetles, lichens, copper vein,
then cut the wild and call the wound their range,
profess my name with every creature slain.

I offered them the earth without a deed,
gave light enough for all who shared the day,
but they made paper, contract, title, creed,
and sold the sun to those who’d learned to pay.

They raised glass spires that nearly touched my throne,
and played such chords that drew my heaven near,
then wrung the debtor dry, outside, alone,
convinced that devotion spoke in coin, not tear.

They scrawled my name on texts they’d twist and wield,
and split the world for what a verse might mean,
they dragged me onto every battlefield,
and made machines no god had ever seen.

Then came the children, kneeling toward the earth,
to name the beasts their parents’ hunger claimed,
they traced extinctions that marked their birth,
and something in their weeping bore my stain.

I thought to end it all, to drown their flame,
but caught them clinging to what they had lost,
and recognized man’s hunger bore my name—
a god who lit their want, then mourned its cost.