the trees reach up to the sky
and down into the earth
because they know the ground is a boundary of life and death

molecules capture partial truths about atoms
working together to become something else
(water is a very popular thing to be)

only those who replicate survive
and they compete and they cooperate
and they find balance and disrupt it

every process is traversing an energy differential
cracks in pavement, the fingers of a fern, a lightning strike
exploring a property of the universe
proving a theorem about what can happen

a worm is a statement that being a worm works
a genetic sequence records thousands of lifetimes of lived reality
in such a small space

where have the dead gone?
their spark is cooled; they have been transformed into ghosts
memories and bones and the world is so different because of everything they did
do you see how large they are?

the body is an ancient mind
passed from shoulder to shoulder for a billion years
and the mind, a young body formed empty
pour into me the world, sate this great thirst o reality
do you see how large we are?
how fragile and yet we can only be transformed

from the molecules to the algae to the worms to the people
life is a hand reaching to grasp
the white hot surface
of god