Is this poem better off with the line under the title or better off without
it?
GENESIS
If a branch snaps in the forest and two people hear it, is there one sound
or two? (Derek Ball)
Before we came to the water it was dark.
Nothing moved in the void.
The sky was starless.
Earth had no form.
The plover did not call before we came.
The orchid did not flower in the bog
for the text of the world was not written.
Hills did not rise nor rivers fall,
for water was not water,
neither cold nor clear.
When we two arrived the world happened,
from stone to star
in the eye that beheld,
in the ear that heard the bird,
in skin's awareness of wind.
There are two lochs where we sit watching,
two skies and two each of moon and the one island,
two birds flying over the two islands,
crying over both and away,
two lochs sinking low in the land, reflecting all,
but in one only the sun will not shine.
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