Anything Above Our Heads is Cosmic

Marne Kilates

The hair on our napes
The air beyond the curl or crew cut
The emptiness of forest or desert or ice
Outside our window

Who or what lifts the vapors from the swamp
To become rain or flood or dew?
What determines our thriving or decomposition
The extent of our becoming
The spark of our precious moment?

We are the adventitious roots that thicken the ficus
Or the leaf that comes off the stem
The dandelion seed blown by the breeze
Perhaps to settle among tall grass
Or simply to finally fade or disintegrate
No hint that it might still sprout
In the dust or among stars

Above or below the soles of our feet
Ebb and flow the tide of ocean or continent
The whisper of blood or sap among roots
That spring from the distant ore of asteroid
The spread of sun or solar flare
As the acacia spreads its branches ablaze

And so we fall asleep or dream
Adrift the vast dark and nothingness
But still with hope in the faint heartbeat
The pulse in the veins the will or instinct of blood
Urging us under cosmos or detritus
Stardust prickling us awake.