By Atom Terpening

 

What stuff of which we are made.
All image we see, shadow and streak
In it we are made.
All charm we hear, rumbling and humming
The plink of a solitary raindrop, a pine needle long tumbling to earth
Of that we are made.
All our flesh may touch, tender and coarse,
Crouched and handled, seasonally tempered and fading with onion skin
On that structure we are made.
All elixirs we taste, subtle sweet pine pollen, salty sweat, draughts of rare wine of rarer virgin water
Through this, made.
What stuff of which we reckon and recall, imagine and endure,
Connecting our carved independence from the cosmic all
Of which we are made
Of which the air stops at tissue yet the tiny swerving particle race unimpeded
Of which we see only
The larger of the small infinity
And the know only the smallest of the larger manifestation
We are Made
At once impermanent and splendid in the eternal
This Stuff
These
Bones
Of
Ancient Stars