Every particle of me has won the lottery,
a surprise galactic cruise
in the height of tourist season.
The universe is young;
everything’s still in flux
and so are we.
Speak, rage, laugh, change,
and when this round is over
I’ll have another
as a blade of grass
an eggshell
the snow
the salt crust on a flamingo’s ankle
because the universe is still young
and this won’t last forever.
The zinc and carbon and iron of me
have more to do yet.
There’s still time now to break
and be reformed and become
new things in every possible configuration,
and if I’m lucky
one of these pieces of me
will settle into another self-centre
because the universe is young
and it’s time to want things.
We will have aeons yet
in which to be still and quiet,
and maybe I won’t be ready to go
when the protons start to decay
but the night is still young
and we have time now to look up
and see ourselves as we really are.
© Copyright 2020 Danielle Jorgenson-Murray
Danielle Jorgenson-Murray is a Teesside-born video game translator based in Frankfurt. Her short fiction can be found in the Cabinet of Heed and Dear Damsels. She can be found tweeting at @ukenagashi and opining about books she’s read at www.sparrowdove.com.
I loved this so much. Great piece of work!
This feels very old, in a good way, despite all the proclamations of the Universe being Young. This could be written by Walt Whitman or it could have passed through the hands of Boethius…
It is very good and it makes me very happy…