Again
She breathes in,
then breathes out.
Lungs expel the old
and inflate again with the new.
The chest rises and falls,
twin peaks on a living landscape
flowing with the alabaster river of life
to nourish one more child of humanity.
And soon, in the head of this babe,
lightning will spark and crackle and flow:
connecting, forming and reforming,
creating and redefining
the perceptions that form existence,
the rules that form civilization.
But in the back of the mind,
the truth that reality is malleable
cannot be forgotten by the heart.
The child, like all children, dares to dream
of things beyond a single prescribed path.
Dreams become goals.
Goals become actions.
Actions create a new version of the world.
And the child, now an astronaut,
stands on the edge of space
staring back on an alien perspective
of a Pale Blue Dot,
each life so small yet precious.
Her gaze turns outward.
There is no horizon to chase,
only glimmering stars to follow.
Mortal life is not long enough
to visit every bright beacon,
but how to choose only one?
Perhaps pursuing those points of light
should be given to the next generation.
The once-child turns back to the Dot,
thinking of her daughter below,
who once drank from the fountains of life
when the elixir flowed from a taller, firmer range.
She breathes in,
then breathes out,
undeterred in the cycle of the Dot
by the infinite black expanse.
