A Small Bang
Syllables pour into a hundred-word universe shocked as the first hydrogen atoms. Each has a music. They circle, join suddenly — word sounds — “Crew went the curlew as it flew in a curlicue.” They rhyme. “Ache did” pairs with “naked.” They gather into galaxies, “He did not know who he was until she taught him desire, then he did not know who he was,” until here at the end of the dictionary of the Milky Way we dangle from a participle, aware of dark matter, what has not as yet been seen, so not as yet said.
I wake from yesterday’s mild exercise
this body’s not immortal though sometimes
I’m hard to convince .. if I came back what would I be?
something small, quick, and sly? A night creature,
fox maybe or ..water rat ..nose in the air ..feet in water?
……. it’s good to live in two worlds at once
……. what lives between fire and earth?
or will we have no bodies then? just location?
like a point in geometry? I would miss this aging
aching frame .. the heaviness that anchors spirit
here in spring like the pull of earth that keeps
the moon from swinging away
by Nils Peterson
from 1001 Words – Thinking of Scheherazade