Pondering the Mystery

[image from google at nightsky.org.uk]

Standing on her kitchen deck
in the dark,
Wild Woman looks up
at the night sky,
following a comet's arc.
There is a big old
harvest moon
hanging up high,
and she is looking
for meteor showers,
but la luna is too resplendent
to see what else
there might be passing by.


Across the planet,
as she is readying for bed,
a young student is waking,
rising to the day ahead,
focussed on escaping
the poverty that binds him.
He can hear his neighbor
whistling as he cooks, 
and this reminds him
of the struggle and the wonder
with which all life abounds,
struggle and wonder,
striving and marvels,
all around.


All around him, all around her,
disconnected lives are following
their singular trajectories
united with every breath:
the arc from waking to sleeping,
the span from birth to death,
from  unconsciousness  to consciousness,
each heart hearing only
its solitary beating,
any two sometimes - randomly?
fortuitously?- meeting.


Around the planet
the heavenly bodies orbit
celestial skies.
The planet turns and turns,
our days as well,
each of us having our moments
of pondering the how's and why's.

The tiniest molecule lives out
its own peculiar story,
as we do, too,
eventually
more thankful
than we're
sorry.