“I Was the First U”
They call me U.
Not a name, but a root,
a quiet pulse beneath your ribs.
Before the rivers had names,
before fire knew its purpose,
I walked —
with bone in my hands
and blood older than language.
They say I lived
forty-three thousand winters ago,
but I never died.
I became branches.
U1 wandered deserts.
U5 sang to mammoths.
U6 kissed the Atlas winds.
U4 — your mother’s mother’s mother —
took the mountain paths
and left part of me
in your eyes.
Even Kotias
was just one candle I lit
in a cave of stone.
You are not lost.
You are not alone.
You are my echo
in a language only DNA remembers.