Star Stuff

We did not ask
to be catapulted among the stars
never knowing where the universe may take us,
how far, or why

we have been left like debris
along the trail of stars
no map, no instructions
only questions, and desire.

Still, this hostile place gave birth
to the paths we walk

and showed us what a home is.

This is the long game of long games,
the universe itself,
creating, destroying, inventing, rearranging
into a future not envisioned

it is wrong, somehow, that what had burned so bright

leaves a hole, a hole in the universe
a presence known only by its absence

It is an accident of life, isn’t it,

that any of us should even be here,

to be alive at the same moment

in all of everything.

We cling to our certainty that we are here now,

but we are each, after all, only a flicker, a whisper.

The questions that arise from the void create possibility.

It is only in certainty that we are truly lost.

©2014 Donna Jo Wallace.