In the Next Life, Canto I, stanzas 37-40

The Facebookers revised #39 for me. I had something about 'types who look like us', which is easily misinterpreted. Three annotations today.

They’ll take equipment, furnishings, and food;
they will have been accumulating these.
There’s lots of stuff they’ll need to have accrued,
like squirrels for their winter in the trees.

When everything’s unloaded they’ll detach
(I’m sure they’ll leave some time to say goodbye).
A second ship will bring a second batch.
They call this one the father. Who knows why?

This reproductive rite they will rehearse
to give the little colony its start,
while inside, mortals many ways diverse
now operate three cylinders apart.

There will be present, though, some dozens more
that won’t have been existing as they will—
those waiting for the colonists to score
by knowing which commandment to fulfill.

© 2010 Louis A. Merrimac

Who knows why: That would be people who have read Canto II.
Existing as they will: A strange way of saying they are waiting to be fashioned into something else.
Commandment: Genesis 1:28—not one of the Big Ten.