A Four and a Half Billion Proof
Four and a half billion years before my eyes.
It’s in the cracks of the sidewalk,
Aggregate filled with foraminifera,
Skeletons from the bottom of the
Western Interior Seaway.
The competition between the chittering grays and dispossessed reds at the park.
The hermaphroditic Barramundi fish.
The Taraxacum Officinal clinging to the black walnut tree in my backyard.
My arthritic shoulders from one hundred thousand hours of guitar playing,
Just a slender drop in the great sea of human physicality,
Which itself is a drop of quanta, a data point in the inky darkness of the universe,
A pale blue dot in the purifying radiance of one hundred billion suns.
It’s in the vaccines,
The cancer drugs.
The opiates that trigger dopamine receptors in your brain.
It’s in Progeria.
It’s in spina bifida.
It’s in cystic fibrosis.
It’s in the MCADD of My dear little one, look it up.
It’s not a myth.
It’s not a fable.
It’s not a fairytale.
It’s not literature.
It’s not The Greatest Story Ever Told, although it certainly is the greatest story ever told.
It’s rich.
It’s mind bending.
It demands my attention
Because it doesn’t care If I consider the evidence or not.
It never stops.
The Earth abides and waits
While we breathe
And read
And talk
And eat
And fuck
And freak out
And laugh
And celebrate victories
And swallow the bitter tears of disappointment
And raise children
And grow old And stumble into dotage
And wither.
It permeates my being and yours
So subtle and all encompassing
Both wave and particle
Presumed,
Ignored,
Spurned,
Disregarded.
How marvelous it is to behold.
3 thoughts on "A Four and a Half Billion Proof"
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How marvelous indeed. Love the rhythm and repetition of this!
This is dripping in rich imagery. Visceral. I’m exhausted by “It’s in the vaccines, / The cancer drugs.” And then it spills out more, more emotional (for me). Last line, wonderful.
I love how this piece folds and unfolds time