Be Fruitful, bids the Biblical command,
and Multiply. There’s little to discuss.
Though Aramaic’s hard, we understand
the order is for propagating us.
But that was written in a time and land
that needed places to be populous.
We’re crowded. We no longer dwell on sand.
We’ve even superceded blunderbuss.

Perpetuation of productive thought
may now be more significant than genes.
I’ve known a few of either sex who brought
no babes to birth but got what labor means.
And sadly more whose time was destitute:
they may have reproduced, but bore no fruit.