Were my hair green grass,
My bones hard stones,
My eyes blue skies
Behind which soft white thoughts
Could move on vagrant winds,
If I accepted birth from stellar dust
Boiled from hell’s cauldrons,
Then would I know myself as true child
Of this golden star which swings,
As if  on magic string,
On our path through galactic whirl.
But we estrange ourselves.
We must concede
Our bones are tiger bones, mice bones,
Bones of hummingbirds, bones, of slow submersibles
That lurk the seas of night.
This skin could grow hair or scales or feathers
To fly the hurricane, swim warm seas
Through coral glories.
Our eyes can now probe the dust of Mars,
Stare at turbulence from submarine volcanic jets,
The feral hawk sits on our shoulder,
The grinning frog, the ghostly jellyfish, the buzzing wasp
And the spirit of those gigantic earth shaking predators
Trail our path.
We are brother to the sequoia, sister to the butterfly,
Father to those fire spitting entities
That will see the stars.
We are family.