Before you were born,
your hand had more muscles,
for instance the dorsometacarpales,
a reptilian remnant, an atavistic relic
from when all blood was cold blooded.
By the time you were thirteen weeks
in utero, a third of the muscles
in your hands and feet had fused
with other muscles. Your body
simply deleted them, proof
that before we are born,
before we are ready
to inhabit our forms,
we are in some ways
made less complex.
I think of this now as I open my hand
for your hand, think
of how much things change.
How once we had fins, then claws.
And now, look at us,
with hands that might caress,
might soothe, might reach.
God, this impulse to be warm.
And I think of how sometimes,
growth means to become more simple.
This is my prayer. To do
what the nascent body can do:
to remember where I came from,
to streamline, to know what is needed,
to know what to let go.
https://earthsky.org/human-world/Evolutionary-remnants-muscles-human-embryos