We, Her Children

With fiery expansion, the soul, a furnace

Burning too quickly to last

The oxygen consumed with a prolonged inhalation

And a knowledge that we, her children

Are the mechanism by which the Universe learns to forget

To live within a moment, This moment

With its infinite probabilities just ahead, inderterminable

We are where the Universe comes to feel alive

And vulnerable and weak, temporary, fleeting

A few weeks without food

A few days without water

A few minutes without air

And if plucked from the nursery of the Earth

Death becomes immediate, a certainty

We, her children are a carnival attraction

A house of mirrors

A terrifying ride with very few safeguards

No height requirements

But a sign reads a promise

"If you stay on this ride you will certainly die"

In all our fragility, we, her children are something more

Her senses

We are the Universe looking back upon herself

Seeing something so vast

Through the eyes of something so finite

Listening to the far off vibrations of the Creation itself

Calculating distance and time

To make sense of it all

We, her children

Are a form of writing, documentation

We are the mechanism by which the Universe learns to remember

It is in our language

And our keeping of records

Our naming and categorizing

That the Universe keeps track of her progress

Knows her birthday

Sees where she's been

Knows where she's going

Feels her own presence

We, her children

With a fiery expansion

The soul a furnace

Burning too quickly

To last